Ann: Ceasing to be and Becoming a substantial holder, page-12

jengus using same address a Cashel

So Singapore fund sold down and a super fund from same office and Angus mason takes up shares - related party transaction?

Bit of history on em

Cashel House looking to hire 20 brokers

Brett Cole
Business Spectator
9:32PM February 11, 2014
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Cashel House, the merchant bank and stock broker backed by Melbourne’s Mason family, plans to triple the number of its stockbrokers to 30 by attracting dissatisfied staff from larger rivals.

The 24-person firm currently has 10 brokers who manage portfolios of between $1 million and $5 million, says Cashel House managing director Angus Mason. He wants to increase the number of brokers to 30 within two years.

“We want to recruit stock brokers away from bulge bracket firms by offering them greater flexibility and control to promote best of breed product rather than being limited to in house products” Mason told DataRoom.

Mason, who declined to talk about his family’s backing of the firm, started Cashel House in 2007. The Melbourne-based firm also has offices in Sydney, Singapore and Pune, India where a nine-person research team provides analysis on industry and economic trends for the firm.

Cashel House’s Singapore office is the administration center of a $50 million closed end fund that seeks to invest in public and private companies in Australia, New Zealand, Hong Kong and Singapore as part of management buyouts, special situation, debt and equity transactions, re-financings and mergers and acquisitions.

The firm is targeting investors from Asia to invest in Australian companies with an enterprise value of between $50 million and $200 million.

Mason and Matthew Lindh, head of corporate finance at the firm, say because of their frequent contacts with Asia they have noticed Asian investors have a more patient, long-term outlook toward acquisitions in Australia’s agricultural sector.

But they add that European and US investors are showing similar strong interest toward such businesses.

“We travel monthly to either Hong Kong, Singapore, Beijing or Shanghai and that’s where we see a lot of our work,” says Mason. “There isn’t the same strong investor appetite from local private equity and family owned offices.”

This month, Cashel House advised United Dairy Power founder Tony Esposito on the $70 million sale of his milk distribution business to a group of investors led by Hong Kong-based businessman William Hui.

Lindh says industrial services and manufacturing businesses will continue to be a focus for the firm’s advisory team. Many companies with an enterprise value of less than $200 million need assistance as they seek to transform themselves into more efficient and bigger firms better able to cope with the competitive landscape.