Cricket legend Shane Warne flips the switch on green investment
King of spin Shane Warne is giving solar energy a knock as he expands his investment portfolio.
Cricket great Shane Warne is riding the green investment wave — with a little help from some high-profile friends.
After receiving an introduction from former English skipper Michael Vaughan to invest in a new renewable energy start-up, Warne floated the business past his two long-time advisers: racehorse owner and Crown Casino founder Lloyd Williams - ranked 103 on The List - Australia’s Richest 250, with an estimated $902m fortune - as well as his father, Melbourne financial planner Keith Warne.
The spin king owns a sizeable share portfolio of both Australian and international stocks, but had been weighing up an entry into clean energy after receiving a stark briefing at Lord’s on the threats of climate change in his role sitting on the MCC World Cricket Committee.
“It made me think all of us can do more,” Warne told The Australian from Melbourne on Wednesday. “It’s a fact that climate change is here, so we have to do as much as we possibly can.”
Solar power
Warne followed Vaughan in buying a stake in the UK-based artificial intelligence start-up Social Energy, which has expanded into Australia to help manage household power needs using rooftop solar and batteries.
The 50-year old has solar installed at his Melbourne home (“it helps heat my pool”) but is now adding a battery and Social Energy hub to allow trading and swapping power back to the Australian grid through a concept known as a virtual power plant. It promises to cut up to 75 per cent from household bills with Warne hearing good initial reports from a system installed by his friend and former AFL player Brendan Fevola.
Warne won’t divulge the size of his stake in Social Energy - “when I say how much I’ve spent people say wow you’re spending that much” - but said he’s confident in the investment and values his team of advisers including Williams.
“Lloyd Williams has been over a long period of time a friend, a mentor and helped me on all sorts of business,” Warne said. “He’s one of the smartest people in the world and I’m so lucky to call him a friend that can help me out in that space.”
His father, Keith, a financial services consultant, also acts as a sounding board which Warne uses to talk investment ideas.
“Obviously people pitch lots of things to me. My team look at that and do their due diligence,” Warne said. “I like that investment space because when you play cricket all your life, you meet lots of interesting people and they give you their card. The reason I take that up is it means you get a bit more well rounded, you spend more time with interesting people, it broadens your horizon and you can talk about wind turbines and all sorts of different things.”
Social Energy works with battery producer Duracell with the system managing household energy consumption, storing it in batteries and trading excess power on the grid to cash in at times of peak demand when power prices are at their highest.