Investment philosophy

We invest with a clear purpose to either grow or transform a business.

We’re passionate about growth

  • Supporting both national and global expansion
  • Delivering innovative and disruptive models
  • Helping companies to succeed in markets with product entry initiatives
  • Scaling businesses through ‘buy and build’ options, which can include partnering Australian businesses with an international platform

We’re passionate about transformation

  • Supporting out-of-favour businesses to enhance their long-term performance
  • Enabling strategic focus via the carve out of non-core assets from conglomerates
  • Supporting and reinvesting in the turnaround of a strong core business
  • Resolving distress situations in fundamentally good businesses

Our investment strategy leverages our competitive strengths


Building on our heritage

Since 1998, IFM Investors has invested over $2 billion in private equity in over 400 funds (and 2,700 underlying companies). We can  identify deep sector experts and harness directly-relevant past investment experience by drawing on our global network. Our heritage underpins our long-term focus and our alignment with co-investors and other domain experts. We believe this makes us a strong investment partner for investee companies.
 

Not traditional private equity

The clear strategic goal of Private Equity is to support the growth of Australian and New Zealand private companies. Because we are owned by pension funds we can provide a differentiated and attractive proposition to investee companies as a true investment partner.

  • A cultural trait of working in partnership, including with founders, management , specialist general partners and corporates
  • Flexible investment time horizon
  • Open-ended ability to support the future growth of companies
  • Preferred position as supportive minority investor with the propensity to increase our ownership stake over time.

Strong team

IFM Investors senior team members have extensive experience investing in and supporting growth businesses across a range of industries and geographies over the past 25 years; along with extensive fund investing experience.

Our partnership approach can provide significant
benefits to clients

Better value,
strong returns
  • Customised mandates at competitive fees means that clients can access private equity's liquidity premium with substantially lower MER/ICR impact
  • IFM Investors brings a ‘specialist mindset’ to the Australian private equity market, which can deliver superior returns to our clients
  • Guidance and support from senior executives across IFM Investors’ asset classes brings insights not easily accessible to a standalone private equity manager.
Meaningful,
high-quality
access
  • The ability to make significant individual, direct investments, in contrast to much smaller average exposures in conventional closed-ended private equity funds
  • The potential to provide ongoing capital as required to support the future growth of an investee company
  • Global networks developed over decades enable to us to identify more opportunities and make better informed investment decisions.
Greater
involvement and
flexibility
  • Close collaboration with our clients to develop bespoke investment mandates
  • A clear "line of sight" between the client and underlying investments provides increased transparency and control
  • Investment style consistent with a client's ESG obligations.

Investment criteria

  • Businesses with a dominant focus on Australia/New Zealand
  • Potential to deploy at least A$50 million of capital over the life of each investment
  • Returns profile that appropriately reflect the risk taken – we generally target returns in excess of 20% p.a. gross for all equity stakeholders
  • Preference to invest in one of five target sectors:
    • Business Services
    • Consumer / Brands
    • Healthcare
    • Technology / Media
    • Education
  • Opportunity to take a significant minority or majority equity position
  • A high quality management team with a clear vision for growth or transformation
Our Tean

Investment team

Our senior team members have significant experience investing directly in and supporting the growth and transformation of businesses across a range of industries and geographies.

Learn more