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By Tammi McDermott, Managing Director, Lawnch
June 2026
After two years of sitting on their hands, Australia’s private equity firms are writing cheques again. Buyout activity rose 32 per cent in value through 2025, landing at US$30.5 billion across 95 deals. Mid-market deal values surged 14 per cent to $20.9 billion, with volumes up 11 per cent to 307 transactions. More than half of Australian CEOs now say they plan to make major acquisitions within three years.
The money is moving. The question for South East Queensland business owners is whether they are ready for it or will watch it pass them by.
Private equity firms across the country are sitting on an estimated $30 billion in dry powder, capital raised and committed but not yet spent. Fund managers are under pressure from their investors to deploy. The first half of 2025 delivered $7.9 billion in completed deals alone, a 153 per cent increase on the prior period. AustralianSuper, the country’s largest superannuation fund, announced plans in February 2026 to expand its private equity allocation, adding PE to its direct investment options for members and signalling a structural, not cyclical, commitment to the asset class.
Meanwhile, total Australian M&A deal values rose 11 per cent in 2025 to $143.7 billion, even as global deal volumes dipped. Foreign investors accounted for 45 per cent of total deal value, up from 30 per cent a year earlier. International capital is flowing into Australian assets because the fundamentals are sound: stable rule of law, a transparent regulatory environment, and a growing domestic economy underpinned by $3.9 trillion in superannuation assets.
In Queensland specifically, 264 transactions completed in 2025. Private equity completed 15 direct acquisitions in the state, the highest level since 2020, with strongest interest in consumer and technology assets.
Here is what I am seeing in the boardrooms. Buyers have moved past the speculative phase. The venture capital frothiness of 2021 and 2022 is gone. What has replaced it is something more disciplined and, for established Queensland businesses, far more relevant.
The sophisticated money, PE firms, family offices, and an increasing number of superannuation-backed vehicles are pursuing what the industry calls ‘boring businesses’. HVAC contractors, logistics operators, niche manufacturers, and maintenance firms. Businesses that produce predictable cash flow and stable EBITDA, rather than promising future revenues that may never arrive.
This is not a passing trend. It reflects a fundamental recalibration of how institutional capital thinks about risk. Reliable earnings, defensible market positions, and transferable systems form the foundation of resilient wealth. For Queensland business owners who have spent twenty or thirty years building exactly this kind of enterprise, the timing should be promising.
Should be. But there is a problem.
Across Australia, nearly one in three small business owners plan to retire within five years. More than 500,000 businesses are owned by people aged sixty or older. Of those contemplating an exit, 45 per cent have no succession or sale plan at all. Thirty-four per cent plan to fund their retirement entirely from the sale proceeds.
The maths does not work if you wait until you are exhausted to start preparing. A credible business sale requires what I call a three-year legal runway: governance cleaned, contracts formalised, intellectual property secured, and financial reporting brought to a standard a buyer’s accountant will accept without a discount. Compress that into three months, and you are not selling a business. You are giving it away.
I have watched profitable enterprises become what amounts to zombie businesses because their owners delayed until fatigue forced urgency. Without clear succession architecture, these firms simply close when the founder steps away. Communities lose employers. Industries lose capacity. Queensland loses sovereign capability. The loss is not failure; it is a preventable disappearance.
From 1 January 2026, Australia’s mandatory merger clearance regime replaced the old voluntary system. It is the most significant change to competition law in fifty years. Any acquisition meeting the monetary thresholds must now be notified to the ACCC and cleared before completion. Penalties for non-compliance reach $50 million for corporations.
For large transactions in concentrated markets, this was expected. The practical impact on the mid-market, however, is being underestimated.
The regime introduces a formal two-phase review: 30 business days for Phase 1, up to 90 business days for Phase 2 if required. The ACCC expects to clear about 80 per cent of acquisitions within 15 to 20 business days, but that expectation assumes the parties file complete, well-prepared documentation. Businesses with messy records, unsigned contracts, or unclear asset ownership will not clear quickly. They will be the ones caught in extended review, watching their deal timelines blow out, and their buyers lose patience.
The regulatory environment is actively rewarding preparedness and punishing those who treat legal structure as an afterthought.
Queensland’s economy is entering an unusual window. The Brisbane 2032 Olympics infrastructure pipeline, population growth running well above the national average, and sustained international interest in Australian assets are creating conditions that should favour business owners looking to transact.
At the same time, the region’s mid-market is constrained by the same succession gap playing out nationally. The owners who built the Gold Coast’s manufacturing base, its logistics networks, and its professional services firms are largely aged fifty-five and over. Many have no formal plan. Some are still recovering from flood damage and supply chain shocks. Now they face the Payday Super mandate from 1 July 2026, new AML/CTF compliance costs, and an ACCC regime that demands the kind of documentation discipline most have never needed before.
The window is open, but it will not stay open indefinitely. Private equity deploys in cycles. When the current wave of capital has been allocated, the next entry point may look very different, particularly if interest rates, geopolitical conditions, or regulatory load shift again.
For owners contemplating their next chapter, the message is direct. Start now. Not because you are ready to sell tomorrow, but because readiness itself is what creates value.
A structured transition begins with understanding what a buyer will actually scrutinise: your contracts, your governance, your IP ownership, your financial reporting, your staff agreements, and your exposure under the Corporations Act 2001 (Cth). These are not items you address in the final quarter before a deal. They are the foundation of a business that commands a premium rather than a discount.
For buyers and investors, the lesson is equally clear. The most compelling opportunities in South East Queensland are not on conference stages or in trend reports. They are behind ordinary doors in Burleigh, Logan, and the northern Gold Coast, where decades of diligence have quietly compounded.
The PE recovery is real. The mid-market pipeline is active. International capital is arriving. The regulatory environment now structurally rewards those who have their legal and governance house in order.
The owners who will benefit most from this cycle are the ones who treat preparation as a strategy, not as a chore to defer. That means getting proper legal advice on structure, running a realistic valuation exercise, stress-testing your shareholder arrangements, and having an honest conversation about timing.
At Lawnch, we work with founders, investors, and boards to design legally sound sale and acquisition pathways, from initial structuring through negotiation and completion. If you are thinking about what the next five years look like for your business, the first step is a conversation. Start it before the cycle decides for you.
Tammi McDermott is Managing Director of Lawnch, a Gold Coast-based legal, R&D and grants advisory firm specialising in corporate commercial law, capital raising, exit readiness, and M&A advisory for owner-led businesses.
