Brambles’ waiting game; Big PE chases big targets; Luminis gauges Caring Group buy er interest

Good evening,

Brambles stole the spotlight in Monday deals, confirming Street Talk’s report that it was in early-stage talks with buyout giant CVC Capital Partners about a potential bid for the company.

While Brambles has been mooted as a takeover target for months, there were a few surprises. First was CVC’s involvement. It is a bigwig in global deals but has been unsighted in Australian deals since dusting $1.8 billion on Nine Entertainment in 2012.

CVC reopened an Australian office late last year, stocked with new faces, and flagged its intention to get back involved in Australian M&A. But to start with a $20 billion bid?!!

Next was the adviser line-up. Brambles has Jarden and Greenhill in its corner – snubbing long-time adviser UBS – while CVC has Jefferies, in what’s a win for two of the three newcomers to Australian investment banking in recent years.

Now it’s a waiting game for Brambles, to see whether its early-stage talks were enough to help CVC conjure the courage to take the next step; an indicative bid.

The whole affair is a sign that PE is finally ready to put its mountain of dry powder to work. For years, the global firms have threatened to make big Australian buyouts and only now, within a couple of weeks, we’ve seen serious interest in Ramsay Health Care and Brambles.

With $20 billion bids (or mooted bids) flying around, clearly debt markets must also be supportive of transactions. We checked in with some debt types on Monday, to see what they had to say.

Elsewhere, we have a new sale mandate at Luminis Partners, and found Liverpool Partners’ $202 million deal to buy IVF provider Genea.

Happy reading,
Anthony Macdonald, Sarah Thompson and Kanika Sood
Street Talk editors