Airtasker chair James Spenceley ‘coming home’ with Swoop’s ASX listing

Aussie entrepreneur and investor James Spenceley is excited after comparing notes on his Airtasker listing with the public debut of Swoop on Thursday.

Airtasker and Swoop chairman James Spenceley. Picture: Julian Andrews

The ASX debut of Andrew Forrest’s Tattarang-backed Swoop on Thursday caps an intense 12 months for chairman James Spenceley, who has also led Airtasker’s listing in March and its subsequent acquisition of Zaarly earlier this week.

And while chairing Airtasker remains one of his favourite roles, Vocus founder Mr Spenceley sees his leadership of Swoop as “coming home.”

“Swoop’s listing is great for me because it’s a skill-set I have,” he said.

“Coming back into telecommunications feels like coming home, like an old glove.”

“There were no post-it notes on the foreheads (similar to the voting system that led to Airtasker’s listing).

“It was very much a sort of a foregone conclusion that subject to markets, a listing was the option for an infrastructure-intensive business like Swoop.”

Swoop is made up of Swoop Telecom (formerly Cirrus Communications) and WA-based NodeOne, together operating one of the nation’s largest fixed wireless networks with 246 towers across all mainland states and 120 staff.

James Spenceley and Tony Grist have made millions after being early seed investors in Che Metcalfe and Sasha Baranikov’s Uniti Wireless business, which is now listed on the ASX. Picture: Calum Robertson

Swoop is expected to have a market capitalisation of $90.3m, on the offer price of 50c per share, when it starts trading, but expectations are higher when compared to Mr Spenceley’s immediate past listing reference, Airtasker.

“I think you can probably get a feel from the investor support for the offer,” he said.

“We were 15 times oversubscribed (for Swoop), while with Airtasker, we were maybe four or five times oversubscribed.

“We actually had more demand from Morgans (underwriter Morgans Financial) for Swoop than we did for Airtasker.

“The proof will be in the pudding tomorrow.”

As chair of Swoop, Mr Spenceley will lead a team of former Vocus executives and telco connections, including Amcom founder Tony Grist, Superloop’s Matt Hollis and chief executive Alex West.

In a reverse takeover deal, ASX-listed shell entity Stemify, a business associated with Mr Grist, raised $20 million to purchase Swoop in a $61.4m deal.

Swoop is positioning itself to be a “challenger” in the internet services sector, mainly against Telstra, by expanding its infrastructure and through acquisitions.

Vocus made 20 acquisitions under Mr Spenceley before he and Mr Grist quit the business in October 2016 after a failed bid to oust then Vocus chief executive Geoff Horth.

Mr Grist looped in the Forrests, who will own just under 20 per cent of Swoop.

Mr Spenceley and Mr Grist will have around 6 per cent equity each.

“I guess people have called it ‘putting the band together’, but I call it working with people that you know, can trust and most of all, enjoy working with.”

Freshly cashed up to the tune of about $8m – from making 15 times the return on a $500,000 investment in Adelaide-based juggernaut Uniti – Mr Spenceley is now helping wages-based lender Beforepay “just around the edges” through introductions to people support its plans to list on the ASX.

He has invested millions in Beforepay, which closed a $9m pre-IPO round in January.

“Probably after listing Airtasker in March and listing Swoop in May, I am due for a little bit of time off.

“To be honest, it’s been a hell of a nine months to a year. It has been very busy.”