Anchorage Capital Partners Fund III
Anchorage Capital Partners Pty Ltd (www.anchoragecapital.com.au) was formed in 2007 by Phillip Cave and Daniel Wong as a dedicated private equity firm that focuses on control investments in established businesses with a strong market position or brand which are not performing at their full potential, often as a result of capital constraints, lack of management attention or being a non-core ‘orphan’ in a large corporate.
Anchorage’s investment process applies their unique combination of capital, operational expertise and change management disciplines, by working in partnership with the management teams.
Prior to raising their first fund in 2008, the teams founding principals had been involved in private equity investing, often as executive managers, in the Asia-Pacific region for over 20 years. As a result, Anchorage brings significant experience to all investments it pursues.
Anchorage Capital Partners Fund III has completed four investments to date; South Pacific Laundry, RailFirst Asset Management, Scott’s Refrigerated Logistics and GBST Wealth Management.
South Pacific Laundry. On the 27th of September 2018, Anchorage Capital Partners Fund III made their first acquisition into one of Australia’s leading commercial laundry operators, South Pacific Laundry (“SPL”). SPL is a highly cash generative and leading national laundry operator, serving customers in the accommodation and healthcare sectors in all major Australian metropolitan markets and regional population centres from a network of modern, highly-automated, state-of-the art facilities.
Key service offering includes the procurement, supply and laundering of linen for over 3,000 customers, ranging from single restaurants to national hotel chains. SPL’s National footprint consists of state-of-the-art, large scale, highly automated, facilities including 9 processing plants and 12 distribution centres serving all major metropolitan markets and regional population centres. SPL is a leader in the accommodation segment, holding long-term relationships and contracts with all the major local and International hotel groups operating in Australia. Anchorage acquired SPL as it saw a significant opportunity to further expand SPL’s offering into the healthcare and aged care sectors, leveraging the growth in their existing long-term healthcare contracts.
RailFirst Management. On 18 December 2019, Anchorage Capital Partners (“ACP”) announced the acquisition of CF Asia Pacific (“CFAP”).
CFAP is the leading full-service rail leasing business in Australia and the fourth largest owner of assets on the Defined Interstate Rail Network. The business has a dominant market position, controlling ~90% of leasable assets (~80 locomotives, ~1,500 wagons) in the rail leasing market. It has a high-quality asset profile with the youngest fleet in the market and strong cash flow conversion. CFAP has a blue-chip customer base, including Qube and Pacific National, as well as diversification across the intermodal, agriculture, mining, maintenance and infrastructure sectors.
CF Asia Pacific offers customised transportation solutions for the Australian market, and will continue to explore growth through the following areas of potential diversification:
– Expanding services and asset classes in existing markets,
– Branching into new markets in familiar regions, particularly Asia Pacific, and,
– Aligning with strategic partners in an open-access operating environment.
Scott’s Refrigerated Logistics. On 27 February 2020, Anchorage Capital Partners (“ACP”) announced to investors that the Fund had entered into an agreement to acquire AHG Refrigerated Logistics from AP Eagers.
AHG RL is Australia’s largest fully integrated cold chain logistics provider and is the market leader in temperature controlled road and rail transport. The business operates a transport fleet of ~500 trucks, ~1 000 truck trailers, ~450 rail containers and 24 cold storage facilities across all Australian mainland states. AHG RL is a non-core division of AP Eagers which is one of the largest automotive dealership groups in Australia. AHG RL is an attractive business in the stable refrigerated logistics sector, with a leading market position, operating a national network.
GBST Wealth Management. During December 2021, Anchorage Capital Partners Fund III completed the investment in GBST Wealth Management, a provider of financial services technology to the capital market and wealth management sectors globally.
Established in 1984, GBST has a long heritage in the financial services sector. Today GBST works with over 100 organisations across Australia, Asia, the UK and the US and the company’s technology supports millions of clients around the world who use the GBST technology.
GBST’s Wealth Management business provides registry and end to end solutions for fund and pension administration, with its flagship product, Composer, offering an integrated system for wrap platforms, master trusts, superannuation funds, pension funds and wealth managers. The business has a blue-chip client base, including major domestic Australian banks, international banks / life insurance companies and leading wealth / asset managers. The company’s service offering is recognised as one of the leading wealth management administration platform in the market.
The acquisition of GBST represents a special situation, with a regulatory forced sale presenting an opportunity for Anchorage to buy a high-quality asset with significant upside available from management’s value driven investment initiatives.
