ConnellGriffin

333 Capital is pleased to have acted as exclusive financial advisor to ConnellGriffin (‘CG’) on their partnership with Pemba Capital Partners (‘Pemba’). The partnership will see Pemba hold a majority investment in CG to accelerate the growth of the business and to assist in realising CG’s ambition of being the pre-eminent infrastructure advisory business in Australia.

Background

ConnellGriffin (‘CG’) is a leading advisor to governments on infrastructure projects across the road, rail, social infrastructure, utilities, aviation and maritime sectors. At the time of engagement CG was operating across the East Coast of Australia with a particularly strong presence in the New South Wales market and employed ~80 staff.

Pemba Capital Partners was established in 1998 and is a leading investor in small and mid-sized private businesses in Australia and New Zealand. Since inception the investment firm has specialised in partnering with the owners and managers of private businesses to help them accelerate growth. Over the course of the firm’s 25-year history, Pemba has made over 30 platform investments and over 100 add-on acquisitions as part of the firm’s buy and build strategy.
 
333 Capital was appointed by the shareholders of ConnellGriffin as the company’s exclusive financial advisor to identity a partner to accelerate the growth of the business at a faster rate than could be achieved on their own.  

Our role

The engagement involved 333 Capital designing a tailored process to provide the vendors with a choice of potential partners with competitive terms and ultimately a result that exceeded expectations. As lead advisors throughout the transaction, 333 Capital’s role included:

• Designing the overall transaction strategy, which included responding to a series of unsolicited offers from interested parties and converting this interest into process participation as well as introducing new parties to CG.
• Assistance with preparing the business for sale including supporting preparation of strategic agendas and preparation of comprehensive marketing documents.
• Identifying, targeting and engaging with potential growth partners and trade buyers.
• Facilitating an efficient due diligence process including managing a fulsome data room, external advisors and Q&A process.
• Negotiating a comprehensive suite of transaction and equity documents.

Result

333 Capital designed a tailored process to provide the shareholders with a choice of potential partners on competitive terms with heightened complexity due to the nearly 50 employee shareholders in the business. The process ultimately led to Pemba Capital Partners investing a majority stake into the business, launching the next stage of strategic growth.

The 333 Capital deal team was Michael Gregory, David Oakman and David Leahey. This deal is the latest in a series advising businesses in the business services sector, including advising Oobe on its sale to Fujitsu, Infrastructure Advisory Group on its sale of a majority stake to Quintet Yorkway, Pragma on its acquisition by ASG Group and HPS Tech on its investment from Straight Bat Private Equity.