Dear AVCAL Colleague,

AVCAL 2007

Thank you to our wonderful sponsors who enabled us to stage a great conference back on the Gold Coast.

I also thank the speakers and panelists for their exhaustive preparation.

We will be sending an electronic survey to delegates to capture their views and suggestions for improvement.

Presentations from the conference are now on-line.



 
PE & VC Award Winners

Congratulations to the winners of the 2007 AVCAL Awards for excellence in Private Equity & Venture Capital.

The awards were presented during the annual dinner.

The Award for Best Early Stage Investment was won by Allen & Buckeridge for their investment in Hitwise.

Hitwise is a leading online competitive intelligence service that helps marketers improve their online performance.

Hitwise was founded in February 1997 with the aim of allowing websites with limited reach (i.e. most corporate sites) the same types of information available to large sites such as Yahoo! And MSN.

Using its patented methodology and relationships with ISPs around the world, Hitwise captures the anonymous online usage, search and conversion behaviour of 25 million Internet users.

The investment returned 12 times money and delivered an IRR over 7 years of 47.8%.


The Award for Best Expansion Stage Investment was won by CHAMP Ventures for their investment in Australian Temporary Fencing

Australian Temporary Fencing is the market leader in the hire of temporary fencing and height safety devices and operates from 27 locations across Australia.

CHAMP Ventures invested $6.5M, of which $5.0M went into the business to provide expansion capital and $1.5M was used to buy shares from existing shareholders.

During CHAMP Ventures’ active involvement the company significantly increased revenue and earnings by successfully executing a number of strategies involving growth, operational improvement and capital efficiency.

The investment returned 3.9 times money and delivered an IRR over two and a quarter years of 105%.


The Award for Best MBO Less Than A$100 million was won by Crescent Capital Partners for their investment in Valley Longwall

The Valley Longwall Group provides specialized underground coal mining equipment and allied services which allow for the safe and efficient extraction of gaseous underground coal. In addition to its Australian operation, the company has developed a rapidly growing business in China and has emerging opportunities in Eastern Europe and India.

During the period of private equity involvement, the number of employees grew from 150 to 520.

The investment returned 7.8 times money and delivered an IRR over two years of 300%.


The Award for Best MBO Between A$100 million and A$500 million was won by Archer Capital and Pacific Equity Partners for their investment in Emeco Holdings

Emeco is the market leader in rentals of heavy earth moving equipment. It has operated in Australia for over 30 years.

In addition to the $112.5M spent acquiring 75% of the business, Archer and PEP invested $50M to grow the stock of equipment available for rental. This allowed the business to take advantage of opportunities in the Australian market and to grow geographically.

PEP and Archer worked to ensure that systems were in place to optimize equipment utilization, depreciation and resources in the business. They also provided access to resources to assist with all of the bank financing and acquisition process when additional businesses were purchased in Canada and Australia.

The investment returned 3.8 times money and delivered an IRR over one and a half years of 139%.

There were no entries in the Public-to-Private and the Best MBO greater than $500 million categories.




Thomson Financial / AVCAL 2007 Yearbook

The 2007 Yearbook was released at the conference and is now available online.



 
AVCAL AGM & Cocktail Party
22nd November 5pm

The AGM will be staged at Quay Grand Hotel at East Circular Quay at 5pm on Thursday 22nd November. This venue is different to Quay Restaurant in the Overseas Passenger Terminal which was used last year.

To register for the Cocktail Party which commences immediately after the AGM at 5.30pm, please click here.








Nominations to serve on AVCAL Council

Nominations are now open to members interested in serving on Council for 2008 & 2009.
Please note - Nominations close at 5pm on Friday 26th October, 2007.

View Notice of Meeting & Nomination Details


Yours sincerely,


Katherine Woodthorpe
Chief Executive