During the first five months of the Funds operations, the Vantage team spent a considerable amount of time conducting due diligence on a number of primary private equity funds and co-investment opportunities within the Australian and New Zealand lower to mid market.
The extensive due diligence process led to the recommendation for the VPEG5 Investment Committee to approve of the $20 million investment commitments to each of Advent Partners 3 Fund, Allegro Fund IV and Anchorage Capital Partners Fund IV, as well as the recommendation to commit $1.0 million to two co-investment opportunities. Upon review, the Investment Committee of VPEG5 unanimously approved these recommendations during February 2022.
VPEG5’s investment portfolio has commenced and now consists of;
- $20 million to Advent Partners 3 Fund, a target $400 million growth private equity fund, focusing on investment into profitable companies in the lower to mid market businesses with an enterprise value of between $30 million and $200 million managed by Advent Partners Pty Limited (Advent) of Melbourne;
- $20 million to Allegro Fund IV, a target $600 million turnaround fund with an investment focus on primarily mid market businesses with an enterprise value of up to $500 million managed by Allegro Funds Pty Ltd of Sydney; and
- $20 million to Anchorage Capital Partners Fund IV, a target $500 million special situations and turnaround fund with an investment focus in underperforming Australasian businesses, usually with enterprise values between $50.0 million and $350.0 million, managed by by Anchorage Capital Partners of Sydney.
VPEG5’s two $1.0 million co-investment commitments will be announced upon completion of each investment, expected during the March 2022 quarter.
As a result, VPEG5 has a total of $62.0 million committed across three Primary Private Equity Funds and two Co-investments. VPEG5 will look to commit to an additional two to three more primary Fund commitments during the 2022 calendar year.
With the Australian and New Zealand lower to mid market segment continuing demonstrate strong momentum, Vantage’s managers are being presented with elevated volumes of high quality investment opportunities across a range of industry sectors. Vantage expects that as businesses operate in this new economic environment, in conjunction with the ongoing disruption to business models, will result in many companies requiring investment and transformation expertise, creating ideal intervening opportunities for Vantage’s underlying managers to create value and drive growth in each portfolio company investment as they are made.
