Twiggy Forrest a winner in wind farms developer Windlab deal

Andrew Forrest will hold a 75 per cent stake in Windlab.

The Andrew “Twiggy” Forrest-backed takeover of international wind farm developer and operator Windlab has been overwhelmingly approved.

The $1-a-share cash offer came in January, a premium to the 72c share price at the time.

The $68m takeover was led by private equity investment fund Federation Asset Management with the financial backing of Forrest’s Squadron Energy.

Federation secured an 18 per cent stake in Windlab last October, with Forrest joining the takeover consortium through Squadron Energy, which is headed by Stuart Johnston.

Federation’s bid was led by Cameron Brownjohn and Stephen Panizza, its head of renewable energy, who was previously chief investment risk officer at the Clean Energy Finance Corporation of Australia.

Forrest will hold a 75 per cent stake in the company that has 7500 megawatts of potential ­capacity, spread across 50 projects.

About 210 shareholders voted in the ballot, with 99 per cent cast supporting the takeover.

Windlab went public with a $2-a-share float, leaving early investors down on their initial 2017 ­investment in the raising managed by Moelis Australia, the ongoing financial adviser to Windlab and its fifth-largest shareholder.

The Roger Price-led Windlab now heads to the NSW ­Supreme Court on Friday to advance the takeover, which will result in the company returning to private ownership.

Windlab was a spin-off of the CSIRO, seeking to commercialise innovative wind resource modelling software.

Its Kennedy Energy Park, north Queensland project has been unable to connect to the grid due to a failure to yet deliver a compliant generator performance standard to the Australian Energy Market Operator (AEMO).

Last year, Forrest joined Grok Ventures, Atlassian billionaire Mike Cannon-Brookes’investment arm, in a capital raising for Sun Ventures, which intends to build a giant solar farm in the Northern Territory.

Amigos’ horse flesh

The three Antipodean amigos — John Singleton, Mark Carnegie and Trevor Kennedy — had a horse race at Warwick Farm yesterday.

Their five-year-old mare Wild About Her, with Nash Rawiller in the saddle on the heavy track, finished last. The winnings of the bay-coloured mare, trained by Kyle Gavenlock at Gosford, remain at $162,000.

Big Brown was its sire and the dam was Once Were Wild, which had seven wins from 28 starts, including the $350,000 Australian Oaks in 2010 at Royal Randwick.

Adman Singleton and his lifelong working colleagues, venture capitalist Carnegie and publishing executive Kennedy, also enjoyed their share in the classic-winning filly, Once Were Wild.

It was bought for $50,000 from John Muir’sMilburn Creek Stud at Gerry Harvey’s 2008 Magic Millions yearling sale at the Gold Coast, which were conducted in March due to a delay after the equine influenza (EI) outbreak.

About four decades earlier, the Muir family had commissioned Singleton to come up with an advertising campaign for their car dealerships at Sydney’s Ashfield and Ryde.

The recent Inglis Australian Easter Yearling Sale saw Tom Magnier pay $525,000 for a bay colt sired by Not a Single Doubt with dam Once Were Wild.

High bubble hopes

Venture capitalist Mark Carnegie leads the expatriate push for the trans-Tasman travel bubble. The Wall Street-trained investor, caught up in virus exile, has booked his anticipatory Qantas flight back for July 1.

Carnegie has been stranded in New Zealand’s Golden Bay since the borders shut in March.

Carnegie and his aristocratic English girlfriend, Lady Katie Percy, have an 89ha riverfront property, with views of Kahurangi National Park in Takaka.

It was bought last September for $NZ5.5m, but the couple spotted the site in 2014.

Apparently Carnegie reckons it’s getting a bit cold there on the northern tip of the South Island.

His plan was to commute every couple of weeks having sold his con­verted Darlinghurst church in inner Sydney for $20.25m to the Paul Ramsay Foundation, which will convert the amazing residential space into offices.

Qantas has told would-be travellers they can book flights from COVID-19-free New Zealand, but warned those flights could be cancelled.

An alliance of Australasian experts has given a blueprint for the resumption of safe trans-Tasman travel to the New Zealand and Australian PMs.

The co-chair of the trans-Tasman Safe Border Group, and Sydney chief executive of the Tourism & Transport Forum Margy Osmond seeks a sustainable restart without the need for a 14-day passenger quarantine.

Full houses

Despite the restraints on travel, there was no room at the inn at the weekend at many of Australia’s top east coast accommodation destinations.

And they are typically booked out over coming weekends, too.

The next weekend to get into Antony Catalano’s Byron Bay resort Raes on Wategos is at the end of the month, and it’ll cost a minimum $2760 for two nights in one of the one-bedroom penthouses. Or the two-bedroom penthouse would knock a holiday-maker back $3700.

Brisbane residents will probably only be looking at the drive to holiday hot spots Noosa or the Sunshine Coast, with the sought-after island life not quite back in business.

Hamilton Island’s Qualia is not taking bookings until the start of August, with no word yet on Race Week, which awaits the opening-of-borders decision of the Queensland Premier.

The Intercontinental on Hayman Island won’t be welcoming guests until September. However, Orpheus Island’s billionaire owner, Chris Morris, hopes to open his $1600-a-night resort from late this month.

There’s no high-rollers jetting in for a flutter and a stay at Crown Towers, with the casino out of action. So the weekend saw a two-bedroom Crystal Villa room available at $2500 a night.

The Victorian Western Districts foodie destination Brae’s doesn’t reopen until June 25 and is staggering its booking process, but the slots have been quickly booked.

Kim’s Beachside Retreat, on the NSW central coast, is booked up until the end of July.

Emirates Wolgan Valley Resort & Spa in the central tablelands region isn’t welcoming guests until July, though the first three weekends are already booked out.

On the NSW south coast Rick Stein’s Mollymook Bannister’s by the Sea isn’t available until July, either.

Virgin clock ticks

There’s now around three weeks until Virgin Airlines administrator Vaughan Strawbridge decides on the best bid between Bain Capital and Cyrus Capital or Virgin falling into liquidation.

Strawbridge, who has Morgan Stanley as his adviser, says both bidders are “well-funded” with “deep aviation experience”.

The normally publicity-seeking Sir Richard Branson has shown a low key, non-committal approach to the bidders who potentially face a $15m invoice for use of his brand. But who knows what is being advised behind the scenes.

Either syndicate no doubt is keen to add additional firepower.

There’s rumours that Stephen C. Freidheim’s Cyrus Capital could team up with Macquarie Bank on its final bid.

Macquarie has been a longtime adviser to Qantas, so Margin Calls wonders what Alan Joyce, the captain of Australia’s most ferocious competitor, would say to Shemara Wikramanayake, although there were no murmurings when Macquarie seemingly teamed up with a losing bidder, Canada’s infrastructure giant Brookfield Asset Management.

Meanwhile, watching on is former Macquarie chief Nicholas Moore, who is the government’s emissary in the sale process, and who remains a shareholder in his old employer.

Of course, Macquarie has ongoing interest in the aviation industry with a 50 per cent stake in Macquarie AirFinance, which provides aircraft and capital to the world’s airlines, plus advisory and asset management services to the COVID-19 ravaged aircraft owners.

Headed by John Willingham, MAF owns or has commitments and options for 263 jet aircraft leased to 86 operators in 46 countries, across six continents.

Brisbane-based Sunsuper took its 25 per cent stake in MAFS only last December, with Dutch asset manager PGGM acquiring its 25 per cent stake in May last year.