The acceptance by Qantas’s board of an A$11.1 billion (US$8.7 billion) bid for the Australian airline cements private equity’s place in the country’s mainstream, despite a growing sense of unease among the public and some thorny remarks from senior bankers.
Australian private equity had already had a landmark year in 2006 even before the Qantas bid was accepted. If that deal goes through, A$22 billion will have been committed to venture capital deals for Australian assets in 2006, compared with A$2 billion the previous year – and the figure would have been much higher had an A$18 billion bid by a Kohlberg Kravis Roberts consortium for supermarket chain Coles gone through.
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