Financial advisory and asset management firm Lazard Ltd. has acquired Australian advisory firm, Carnegie, Wylie & Co., for a combination of cash and stock, effective immediately.

Carnegie Wylie, located in Melbourne, Sydney and Brisbane, provides mergers and acquisitions advisory services in Australia and the Asia Pacific region, and has a successful and expanding private equity business.

The current Sydney-based Lazard Financial Advisory team will join with Carnegie Wylie, under the leadership of Carnegie Wylie co-founder and principal John Wylie. Carnegie Wylie co-founder and principal Mark Carnegie will become CEO of Lazard’s Australian Private Equity business. Lazard Asset Management’s Australian business will continue to be managed separately, under its current leadership in Sydney.

“We are proud of our firm’s achievements in the Australian market. However, we recognise that more and more opportunities are cross-border and require the access and expertise of a premium global firm,” said Wylie, in a release. “It is a compelling combination. With Lazard, we preserve our integrity and maintain our independent business model, which has proven successful with clients. Now we can deliver an international network.”

“The acquisition of Carnegie Wylie is another important step in our five-year strategy to expand our financial advisory business by geographies, and reinforces our commitment to provide premium service to clients,” said Charles Ward, president of Lazard. “Acquiring Carnegie Wylie will allow us to bring Australia’s top banking talent into the Lazard fold, to build on our existing Australian business faster, inherit an established presence and premier brand in Melbourne, Sydney and Brisbane, and strengthen our access in the important Asia Pacific region.”

Both Wylie and Carnegie have worked in the investment banking industry for more than twenty years in New York, the UK and Australia. Prior to co-founding Carnegie Wylie in 2000, Wylie was Head of Investment Banking at Credit Suisse First Boston in Australia. Carnegie, an entrepreneur and career investor, was a principal consultant for San Francisco-based private equity group Hellman & Friedman in Australia and Southeast Asia for almost a decade.

Over the past three months, Lazard announced plans to acquire 50% of MBA Banco de Inversiones, extending its reach across Central and South America, and signed a cooperation agreement with Raiffeisen Investment, the M&A advisory business for Austria’s largest banking group, strengthening its footprint across Russia, Central and Eastern Europe. In July, Lazard announced its planned acquisition of Goldsmith Agio Helms, a U.S. middle-market advisory firm, which will serve as the core of a new growth initiative focused on advising U.S. mid-sized private companies.