James Carnegie to head Blackstone's Sydney office JAMES Carnegie, a former partner at private equity firm Archer Capital, has been appointed head of Blackstone Group's Sydney office, a signal the New York-based global investment company is striving to do its first Australian buyout. Carnegie has been appointed a senior managing director at Blackstone, a statement emailed to DataRoom says. He was previously a senior adviser to the firm in Australia. Paul Costello, Blackstone's former Australia and New Zealand chairman, resigned last year after about two years at the firm. Costello was charged with supporting Blackstone's fund-raising efforts in Australia as the US firm targeted a portion of the $1.6 trillion held by superannuation funds for its private equity, credit, real estate, hedge fund and mutual fund businesses. Founded in 1985 as a takeover adviser by Steve Schwarzman and Pete Peterson with $US400,000, New York Stock Exchange-listed Blackstone managed $US248 billion in assets as of September 30, 2013. But in Australia, its private equity team has yet to do an Australian deal. The firm's only buyout in the antipodes has been the November 2011 purchase of New Zealand's Antares Restaurant Group, which owns the Burger King franchise in that country. US private equity giants have found buyout opportunities few and far between in Australia mainly because there are few deals of the size they want, more than $500 million, while Sydney-based firms such as Champ Private Equity and Pacific Equity Partners have proven to be fierce competitors. KKR & Co has two investments in Australia, Bis Industries acquired in 2006 and GenesisCare acquired in 2012. Last year, KKR sold its entire 12 per cent stake in Seven West Media. Carnegie may have his work cut out for him to find a target if the stock market remains near current levels. The S&P/ASX 200 Index is trading at 16.9 trailing earnings, according to Citigroup, having gained 15 per cent since January 1, 2013. Such trading multiples make a private equity deal potentially too expensive. Mergers and acquisition volumes in Australia are expected to be little changed in 2014 from 2013. Anthony Sweetman, head of corporate advisory in Australia for UBS, has said he expects M&A volume this year in Australia to be about $90 billion.