Life360 fixes IPO price, brings forward bookbuild

App owner Life360's mooted initial public offering has been fixed at $4.79 a share. 

App owner Life360's mooted initial public offering has been fixed at $4.79 a share.

A bookbuild will be held on Tuesday to seek to raise the capital.

Life360's brokers Credit Suisse and Bell Potter notified funds of the update on Monday.

The fixed price is at the lower end of a tight price range sent to potential investors last week. Life360 had previously set out to raise its fresh funds at $4.79 to $5.26 per Chess Depository Instrument at a bookbuild scheduled for Wednesday.

If successful, the raising at $4.79 a security would value Life360 at $US500 million on an enterprise value basis and 8.3-times forecast 2019 calendar year revenue.

The company is seeking to raise $144.7 million, in a deal that would see it list in the first half of May.

The fixed price comes after Life360 management spent the second half of last week pitching the float to institutional investors in Australia.

It is understood some of those funds have made early bids to Life360's bookrunners.

Life360 is one of the fastest-growing apps in the US, tapping into the concerns of parents and family members about what dangers could befall their loved ones when they are out and about, by recording their locations on a real time online map and updating users on details like their driving performance, proximity to crimes and phone battery life.

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Movement at TransGrid station, as regulatory changes bite

Times are tough for the domestic and global investment heavyweights that collectively handed over more than $30 billion for control of NSW's electricity infrastructure assets in the past 3 1/2 years.

Times are tough for the domestic and global investment heavyweights that collectively handed over more than $30 billion for control of NSW's electricity infrastructure assets in the past 3 1/2 years.

While no one disputes that the poles and wires networks companies are trophy investments, as far as owning infrastructure assets is concerned, some unfavourable regulatory rulings have crimped profits and caused investors to re-think book values of their underlying holdings.

Investors reckons it's all part of the ups and downs when you buy a 50-odd year asset - particularly when you buy them in a competitive auction.

However, what they didn't necessarily expect were tax changes announced by the government last year that change the way investors could use stapled structures to minimise tax.

Add the two together - performance and tax changes - and it is understood there are some itchy feet, causing a substantial global investor to weigh the sale of its stake in NSW power transmission company TransGrid.

While there is no auction afoot - yet - fingers are pointing at TransGrid's two big Middle Eastern investors, who each own a 19.99 per cent stake in the company.

The two investors are newcomer Kuwait Investment Authority's Wren House Infrastrucucture and an old hand in Australia, Abu Dhabi Investment Authority, and their stakes are expected to be worth nearly $1 billion each.

Sources said it would make sense to see either investor offer its holding to its fellow TransGrid shareholders first, before testing the market more widely.

It is understood there are pre-emptive rights in the shareholder agreement, although it is not known exactly what those rights give to fellow shareholders which include ASX-listed Spark Infrastructure, ex-Hastings vehicle Utilities Trust of Australia and Canadian pension fund CDPQ.

Neither of those three is expected to seek to sell, however sources said it was unlikely any would be keen to increase its stake given the investment's performance since signing in late 2015.

Other funds - and their hungry investment bankers - are known to be circling.

It is understood the list includes some Australian heavyweights who are relatively underweight core domestic infrastructure, including industry fund managers like CBus.

The Hastings-led consortium paid $10.3 billion for Transgrid in Novmeber 2015 after winning an auction that also included bids from China's State Grid, Macquarie's funds management arm MIRA, QIC, AustralianSuper and IFM Investors.

At the time, the price paid was said to be "an incredibly full price".

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IPO hopeful PKS Holdings to launch insto bookbuild

It's crunch time for initial public offering contender PKS Holdings.

Initial public offering contender PKS Holdings is hoping there will be a ripple effect from a more healthy overall sharemarket when it seeks $19.5 million in a bookbuild on Monday.

The sharemarket has pretty much shrugged off the substantial downturn of late 2018 and regained some strength, but it’s been a different story in the IPO market. Pre-election nerves haven’t helped.

PKS Holdings is the latest healthcare technology play to seek an ASX listing. It provides a proprietary subscription-based clinical decision support system called “RippleDown” that automates the human decision-making process in health care organisations.

It's a "highly profitable' global software business, recording underlying earnings before interest, tax, depreciation and amortisation growth of 100 per cent, compounded, between the 2016 to 2018 financial years and 13 per cent growth, compounded, at the revenue line, according to an investor presentation obtained by Street Talk.

The presentation makes note of PKS Holdings' "sticky" revenues with the company having maintained all contracted customers since 2011. It also points to "strong operational leverage delivered in the 2018 financial year and expected in the future" and talks about the company's "annuity style revenue streams with FY18 EBITDA margin of 54 per cent."

The institutional bookbuild on Monday will be overseen by joint lead managers Bell Potter Securities and Shaw Stockbroking. The brokers have spent the past week shoring up investor support for the IPO from small cap institutional fund managers and the retail books of the broking firms.

It's all part of a deal being led by Sydney investment firm Bombora Investment Management, run by ex-Ironbridge private equiteer Mike Hill and Gregg Taylor.

The transaction will see one of Bombora's shell companies, the unlisted public company QPro, acquire Pacific Knowledge Systems for $18 million or around 8.1-times FY18 EBITDA .

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The acquisition would be funded via the $19.5 million initial public offering and the renamed PKS Holdings would trade on the ASX-boards in early June.

Hill chairs the PKS Holdings' board which also counts former Archer Capital dealmaker Andrew Gray and former Healthscope chief investment officer Paul Williams as non-executive directors.

It continues a run of deals for Bombora, the firm behind recently listed microcaps Acrow Formwork and Construction and Janison Education Group, where it has turned dormant shell companies back into listed companies via reverse takeovers.

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Goldman Sachs set to bankroll feedlot funder StockCo

When Goldman Sachs makes a principal investment in Australia, it’s usually worth watching. The bank’s dealmakers are shown a lot, but they don’t write a lot of cheques.

When Goldman Sachs makes a principal investment in Australia, it’s usually worth watching. The bank’s dealmakers are shown a lot, but they don’t write a lot of cheques.

So it’s interesting to hear Goldman Sachs is set to replace the lending group to Elders-backed “agrifinancer” StockCo.

It is understood Goldman Sachs’ securities division is set to provide a $200 million-odd warehouse facility to StockCo, and replace a couple of domestic lenders.

The warehouse facility would enable StockCo to write about $200 million of loans to its clients, before securitising the loans and taking them to investors.

StockCo is a specialist livestock funder, funding up to 100 per cent of the purchase price for livestock trading, background and finishing purposes.

Its loans are usually secured against livestock, which means its clients can take out StockCo finance without impacting other credit facilities with banks and the like. From the bank’s perspective, the finance should allow the livestock owner to make its stock more valuable.

It is understood the Goldman Sachs-sponsored warehouse facility would replace StockCo’s existing arrangements with Bank of Queensland and Challenger.

The new warehouse facility comes soon after StockCo sold an equity stake to Australian rural services company Elders.

Elders took a 30 per cent stake late last year, having working with StockCo and its founders since 2014. The deal was pitched as a way for StockCo to increase the size of its loanbook – with introductions via Elders’ large client base.

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Ex-ANZ bigwig Steve Belotti’s new firm doubles down in blockchain

Everyone loves a comeback story – and former ANZ Banking Group markets boss Steve Bellotti’s new firm is doing its best to make a case for comeback of the year.

Everyone loves a comeback story – and former ANZ Banking Group markets boss Steve Bellotti’s new firm is doing its best to make a case for comeback of the year.

Fresh from a horror 2018, performance at Bellotti’s digital assets investment firm Token Capital Management has rebounded and his team is seeking to make the most of it.

Token Capital Management, which is chaired by Bellotti, is going global.

And Street Talk can reveal the strategy has seen Token Capital Management acquire a majority stake in Cleveland-based digital asset manager, Grasshopper Capital.

Grasshopper Capital had one fund, which was launched in 2017, was long only, and invested primarily in infrastructure opportunities relating to blockchain. The fund was closed in 2018, having returned 29.28 per cent in its short life.

But Bellotti’s Token Capital Management is reviving Grasshopper in conjunction with JPMorgan banker-turned-blockchain bigwig Frank Amato. The pair has taken a controlling stake in Grasshopper and are backing its founders to help launch a new fund dubbed “Grasshopper 2”.

It is understood the team has already started pitching Grasshopper 2 to potential investors, seeking to raise $US25 million to $US75 million to invest in blockchain and digital assets.

Potential investors have been told the new fund will focus on venture capital and asset management in the digital asset and blockchain sector.

It comes as Token Capital Management’s other fund, the EKT Active Fund which has been renamed the TCM Momentum Tracker Fund, is understood to be up about 40 per cent this year.

It comes after the fund’s tough time in 2018, as reported by Street Talk in early February, when it was down nearly 75 per cent heading into the end of its first year.

Bellotti is the former global head of markets boss at ANZ, who left the bank in 2015.

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