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Case Studies

Carbon Fund

Background 

Bentleys has established long-term and valuable trusted connections across Australia, with particularly strong ties within the Agribusiness, food, and farming sector.

One of these connections, Adam Townley, the CEO and co-founder of Australian Integrated Carbon, plays an active and growing role in Australia’s efforts to decarbonise the future.

Australian Integrated Carbon has been expanding rapidly, recently welcoming global institutions such as Mitsubishi Corporation to its share register. The founding team also sought to provide a value realisation strategy for some early shareholders.

The Solution 

  • Due diligence was completed on the possible asset acquisition, including the development of a value creation thesis, negotiation, and completion of acquisition.
  • An appropriate investment structure was set up for the Trustee/AFSL team to properly securitise the asset while protecting investor interests.
  • A proprietary and exclusive opportunity to invest in this structure was provided to a select number of private family clients who are wholesale sophisticated investors.
  • The Funds administration team provides investment reporting to these shareholders.
 
The Results
  • Our private sophisticated wholesale clients were provided with a unique and proprietary way to access the decarbonisation investment thematic and diversify their investment portfolio.
  • Market and regulatory tailwinds continue to bolster the underlying investment thesis.
  • The investment is being managed in an appropriate way with institutional-grade trustee and fund administration support.

Compass Fund

Background

Compass Agribusiness is one of Australasia’s leading agribusiness investment and client partnership specialist with over 20 years of experience in farming and financial sectors. They offer a variety of services such as asset management, corporate advisory and consulting, and funds management with international operations across New Zealand and Australia. Compass has a proven track record in managing the performance of large-scale farming operations, delivering both production and financial results.

The Solution
  • Compass was looking to acquire four Tasmanian dairy farms – Berkley, Ivanhoe, Woodrising, and Pindari, which included associated water rights, livestock, plant, and machinery. Three of these farms were already managed by the Compass team (Berkley, Ivanhoe, and Woodrising) and had been developed from bare land into profitable dairy operations. The fourth, Pindari, represented an opportunity to not only increase Compass’ portfolio but to also acquire 2,544ML of water rights in excess of the current requirement of the property, indicating a significant growth upside of approximately 500ha of irrigable land.
  • The Managing Directors, Guy Blundell and Nigel Pannett, approached Rawlings Bolton & Co to support their fundraising efforts to purchase the four properties. After thorough consultation with the Compass team, it was decided that a hybrid model of debt and equity financing would be appropriate, utilising Rawlings Bolton’s Australian Financing Services license to set up a managed investment scheme, in September of 2021. 
  • The Rawlings Bolton team was also appointed to handle the registry and fund accounting operations for the newly formed Compass Tas Farming Trust. These services include accepting investor applications, providing incidental custody for investor monies, performing AML/CTF compliance requirements, creating investor distribution statements, and completing accounting functions for the trust.

 

The Results
  • The Trustee Services team of Rawlings Bolton successfully supported Compass in raising over $20M in equity capital from investors. In addition, Compass secured $17M from debt financing to fund the remainder of the purchase.
  • The Compass team was so happy with the services provided by Rawlings Bolton, they have utilised their services again for their new venture, Compass Meadowbank Investment Trust, where they intend to raise $16M of equity funding to acquire another large-scale dairy property and run-off neighboring grazing property in Tasmania. Fundraising commenced in May 2023.

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