US merchant bank opens in Australia

18 August 2009

The US merchant bank The Silverfern Group has announced the opening of an office in Sydney (PDF) as a base for its Asia/Pacific operations.

Silverfern also announced the appointment of Brett Chenoweth as Managing Director for Silverfern Australia. Mr Chenoweth was formerly Head of Mergers and Acquisitions and Head of Strategy for Telecom New Zealand.

The New York-based Silverfern is independently owned and specialises in originating and structuring proprietary (non-auction) buy-side Mergers & Acquisitions opportunities, Private Equity Fundraising, and making equity co-investments and debt investments with relationship private equity firms and corporates worldwide.

Last year, Silverfern originated over 95 proprietary transaction opportunities for its clients, which represented US$39 billion of Total Enterprise Value and the opportunity to deploy over US$19 billion in equity capital.