Oaks grow with Carter Newell
CARTER NEWELL has worked with Oaks Hotels & Resorts to help it become one of the largest apartment management companies in the country.It issued a fully underwritten renounceable rights
CARTER NEWELL has worked with Oaks Hotels & Resorts to help it become one of the largest apartment management companies in the country.
“Oaks listed on the stock exchange earlier this year, and since then has added a number of properties to its portfolio,” Jorss said. “Oaks wanted to be able to raise some more money to repay debt so that it could continue with expansion, and so that’s why it undertook the rights issue.”
The whole deal was over and done in slightly more than a month, which was quick considering that Oaks had not yet been listed for a whole year.
“Under the Corporations Act, if the company has been listed for less than 12 months, it cannot use a short form rights issue prospectus. It has to issue a full prospectus, as if it were conducting an initial public offer,” Jorss said.
Waiting for the year to pass was not an option given the haste with which the company wished to expand, he said. This growth also compelled Oaks to restate its financial forecast for the 2007 year.
“Usually with a rights issue prospectus, there would not be a restatement of forecast, but because of the growth that had happened, the company felt that it was appropriate to do that,” added Jorss.
Following Oaks’ initial public offer in 2005, it has consolidated its presence through expanding its portfolio to 30 properties in Australia and New Zealand.
“The quality of the advice and responsiveness of the team has been second to none,” the CFO of Oaks, Janelle Campbell, said. “It was even more remarkable given the very tight time deadlines that we asked them to deliver to.”