EQT promotes three Australian staffers

Swedish private equity group EQT has promoted three of its Australian staffers, elevating a partner in its capital raising team and two managing directors within its private capital and infrastructure teams.

First, Martin Donnelly joined EQT's client relations and capital raising team in late 2022 from First Avenue Partners, where he was a partner and head of Asia.

He previously spent time at Blackstone's hedge fund solutions group and at ING Asset Management as deputy chief executive and head of business development.

Jacob Van der Wiel came to EQT through its merger with BPEA, (formerly Baring Private Equity Asia)  which was rebranded as EQT Private Capital Asia.

He earlier worked at Vista Equity Partners, focusing on enterprise software investments in the US and Asia-Pacific.

Thirdly, Harry Byrnes Howe, who began his career in Credit Suisse's investment banking team, joined EQT four years ago from Pacific Equity Partners in Sydney, where he was associate director.

The appointments come as EQT beds down its $3.2 billion acquisition of Coller Capital.

The deal, expected to be finalised later this year, will see Coller operate as a new business platform within EQT under the Coller EQT brand. It will form part of EQT's new secondaries business segment alongside its existing private capital and real assets divisions, though its origination and investment process will remain independent.

EQT, founded in 1994 by Sweden's Wallenberg family, is the world's second-largest private equity firm behind KKR with €270 billion in assets under management.