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Robin Bishop, the former boss of Australia's biggest investment banking team at Macquarie Capital, is joining the country's newest private equity firm, BGH Capital.
Street Talk can reveal that Bishop has agreed to link up with former University of Melbourne classmate and friend Ben Gray and another ex-TPG Capital dealmaker, Simon Harle, to be the new private equity firm's third founding partner.
Bishop is expected to front potential investors when the firm kicks off its inaugural fundraising in October, and will no doubt be involved in dealmaking efforts soon after.
The former Macquarie Capital Australia boss needs little introduction to local dealmakers, investors and directors.
He advised on more than $125 billion worth of deals during his 22-years at the Australian investment bank, before retiring from banking last December, and was judged Australia's most powerful dealmaker prior to handing over the reins.
While Bishop was regarded as an astute M&A; adviser, he rose to prominence at Macquarie with a handful of deals for the bank's own balance sheet, making hundreds of millions of dollars in profits and overseeing some of its best investments.
Those deals include the acquisitions and divestments of Dyno Nobel and Boart Longyear.
Bishop was close to Macquarie Group CEO Nicholas Moore and ran the bank's Australian investment banking team for five years. He helped raise equity for the likes of Origin Energy ($2.5 billion in 2015), National Australia Bank ($5.5 billion in 2015) and Medibank Private ($5.7 billion in 2014), and worked on big ticket deals including Wesfarmers' $22 billion acquisition of Coles and AXA Asia Pacific's sale to AMP and AXA SA.
It is understood he agreed to join Gray and Harle - and help create BGH Capital - earlier this week.
He is the most senior in a string of high profile hires for Gray and Harle, who left US buyout firm TPG late last year.
The pair leased an office in Melbourne's 101 Collins Street earlier this year, and has recruited the likes of former Credit Suisse managing director Stephanie Charles and Wesfarmers' outgoing finance director Terry Bowen.
BGH Capital is expected to formally launch the fundraising efforts in October. Private equity investors expect it to seek to raise about $2 billion, and invest that money in buyout deals in Australia and New Zealand.
It comes as competition in the local private equity sector heats up, with the likes of BGH Capital and a handful of other new firms scouting for opportunities and taking on their more established Australian and offshore rivals.