Australia's PEP sells Link stake to Macquarie, ICG - report

According to The Wall Street Journal, Macquarie is offering part of its holding to clients as a pre-IPO placement in the expectation that the company will go public in 2014 with a valuation in excess of A$800 million. Link raised A$710 million in debt earlier this year after an earlier effort to find a strategic partner proved unsuccessful.

Link comprises two assets: Link Market Services (LMS), one of Australia's leading share registry companies, and AAS, which provides fund administration services to superannuation funds. PEP acquired LMS from the Australian Securities Exchange and Perpetual Trustees Australia in 2005. AAS was bought from Telstra Corp. one year later.

The enterprise value of the assets at acquisition was A$137 million.

PEP - which also owns US stock transfer services provider American Stock Transfer & Trust - has helped LMS expand internationally through a number of bolt-on acquisitions. Link Group is expected to generate EBITDA for A$140 million for the year ending June 2014.

A partial exit from the business ahead of the IPO - at which point the private equity firm could sell its entire holding - would allow PEP to return capital to investors as it seeks to raise up to A$3.5 billion for its fifth fund, comprising A$2 billion of core equity and a $1-1.5 billion discretionary co-investment pool.

• Tweet  
• Facebook  
• LinkedIn  
• Google plus  
• Save this article  
• Send to  

• Topics
• Exits
• Australasia
• Support services
• Exit
• Secondaries
• Pacific Equity Partners
• Macquarie Group
• Intermediate Capital Asia Pacific
• Australia