EVP calls in forensic experts at Melbourne start-up days after investing | Roc Partners debuts new fund | UBS blocks operative off to rival

Good evening,

Michael Lukin’s Roc Partners is betting on high-net-worth investors’ voracious appetite for private markets assets to launch an Australia-first fund that would hunt for deals across the spectrum, from early-stage start-ups and vanilla buyouts to turnaround plays.

Street Talk can reveal Roc Partners on Tuesday will open the books for the inaugural capital raising of its new fund, the Roc Summit Private Equity Fund, to settle on a “high quality” seed asset valued at about $160 million.

It has agreed terms to buy a portfolio of 103 underlying companies in Australia and New Zealand managed by 23 private capital funds off a superannuation fund. Such trades, dubbed secondaries, are typically done at a big discount, but Roc declined to discuss the specifics.

The fund is the first of its kind by a home-grown fund manager, and expects to split its portfolio across buyouts (60 per cent of the total), growth investments (20 per cent), and venture capital and turnaround bets (10 per cent each) – in a stark contrast to the traditional modus operandi of fund managers sticking with specialised funds.

The goal is to make 12 per cent to 15 per cent in net annualised returns.

Roc is marketing the fund as an evergreen, open-ended vehicle that is free of the usual trappings of private equity funds, especially the need to sell assets and return capital to investors within a set time frame.

Lukin, Roc’s managing partner, told Street Talk he expects the new fund to attract inflows at the rate of about $200 million a year, which should swell it to nearly $1 billion in a couple of years.

Continuation funds, used by PE firms to prolong their hold of a promising investment company, are expected to be a key source of deal flow.

Read the full story tomorrow and more on the Street Talk page.

The private capital secondary market – which yielded Roc Partners′ latest fund’s seed asset – is expected to be a fertile hunting ground for future opportunities, as dealmakers gravitate towards “continuation funds” to prolong their hold of promising bets. Roc was one of the investors when Quadrant wheeled out the structure at auto parts distributor, MotorOne, in 2022.

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