October 2004

It has been another busy month for the industry with a couple of very significant events in particular. Goldman Sachs JBWere’s Private Equity business concluded a NZ$113 million transaction for the Hauraki Private Equity No 2 Fund to buy from Tyco Services Australia and New Zealand several business divisions with a combined annual turnover in excess of NZ$750 million.

And the Pohutukawa Private Equity capital raising by Direct Capital Private Equity and ABN AMRO Craigs, closed on 8 October 2004 as scheduled, with firm commitments of $53 million which included $13 million of over-subscriptions - once again showing that investor interest in this asset class is very high.

There are also several venture capital and private equity deals in the pipeline at present and we should be able to report on some of those next month.

The Association is now heavily focused on the 3rd Annual Conference next week. We have registered 140 delegates so far and it promises to be a great day!

Please register quickly if you have not already done so as we now have a limited number of places available. The link to the online registration form is provided below.

Having talked to the speakers over the last 2 weeks I am absolutely sure that there will be some great content and debate throughout the day. The confirmed speakers are Eric Zimits (Managing Director, Granite Ventures, San Francisco),Chris Jones (CEO, Argent Networks), Bill Day (Managing Director, Seaworks Ltd), Mark Sewell (CEO, EDIS International), Richard Downs-Honey (Managing Director, High Modulus(NZ) Ltd), Neville Jordan (Chairman, Endeavour Capital), Mike Donovan (Managing Director, Motion Industries Ltd), Mark Edwards (Director, No 8 Ventures), Andrew Lewis (Partner, Simpson Grierson),Dr Don Brash (National), Paul Costello (CEO, NZ Super Fund), Ed Schuck (Managing Director, Russell Investment Group),Howard Moore (Executive Director, Life Science Ventures), Joshua Funder (GBS Ventures, Sydney), Brian Gaynor (Managing Director, Milford Asset Management)and Bernard Doyle (Chief Economist, Goldman Sachs JBWere).

The day will end with a Conference Dinner in the evening in the Grand Tea Room at the Heritage.

The latest conference program is attached below.

Take me to the online conference registration form

We welcome the following new members:

Investors Guaranty NZ Limited – Full member

Jones Young - Associate member

Movac Limited - Incubator member

AUT Technology Park – Incubator member

The NZVCA now has over 80 members including 16 venture capital and private equity managers and over 60 corporate, advisory, incubator, angel, University and government agency groups who are all active in the industry in various ways.

If you want to join the NZVCA or to learn more about NZVCA membership please don't hesitate to contact me.

Best wishes

In conjunction with Negotiation Lab from the USA, next February the NZVCA will be running an Art of Negotiating course specifically focusing on venture capital and private equity. We are looking to announce full details of this course at the conference next week and we will also include more details in next month's Newsletter - and so look out for those.

Information on the course will also be available in the Events section of the NZVCA website from late next week.

Chris Twiss
ex NZVCA