What a difference a year can make in the Australian MA market. Twelve months ago sellers held the upper hand, conducting competitive auctions for assets that were frequently sold for handsome multiples. The winners, in a lot of cases, were those who could outbid their rivals by using cheap leverage to ratchet up the price -- a strategy frequently employed by private equity firms. Then the financial crisis hit and the flow of cheap finance was cut off, causing the highly leveraged bids to vanish. Vendors have been forced to re-evaluate their selling price, but they haven't done so readily.
At the beginning of last year, buyers were sitting around waiting for sellers...
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