Tech billionaire Mike Cannon-Brookes hefty’ $8bn bid for AGL most audacious push in ‘green’ investments
Mike Cannon-Brookes describes the biggest decarbonisation project in the world as his ‘night and weekend job’.
Billionaire entrepreneur Mike Cannon-Brookes has described his green ventures as his “night and weekend job”.
After making his name and fortune with tech giant Atlassian, he now wants to pull off what he describes as the single biggest decarbonisation project in the world – the takeover of AGL Energy.
He admits it appears a big undertaking, but says the $8bn deal and his broad climate goals will remain a part-time job.
“Let’s be clear, this is not my day job,” he tells The Australian.
“Atlassian has generously given me most of this day off to talk but I’ll be going straight back to work after.”
Cannon-Brookes has a reasonably strict work ratio, devoting 90 per cent of his time to the tech giant he co-founded and the rest to his green energy and climate endeavours.
He admits finding a solution to what he regards as the biggest challenge of our generation, climate change, drove him to an unlikely bid for AGL.
“I have a deep knowledge and passion for the energy industry and the transition that’s happening, and obviously a deep personal interest in climate change and decarbonisation,” he says.
While the cap-wearing Cannon-Brookes has a laid back-persona, he’s also at pains to make clear the joint bid with Canada’s Brookfield is not a takeover offer that was dreamt up in a week.
Grok Ventures, Cannon-Brookes’ family investment group, first approached investment advisory group Jarden as far back as June last year to run some scenarios on AGL as the power giant sought to progress a split of the company into separate retail and generation arms.
One option was to take a potential activist stake, a trend which has gained ground globally in energy circles and can give investors influence with a company’s board to fast-track a transition away from fossil fuels.
Asset managing giant Brookfield – perhaps best known in Australia for buying private hospital operator Healthscope and freight firm Asciano – was also casting its eye over AGL but with a different lens.
It had recently launched a new climate-focused fund led by former Bank of England governor Mark Carney and in AGL saw the opportunity to take one of its biggest bets.
A common contact of the unlikely pair who had insights into both of their individual plans made the introduction and both soon realised they would be more powerful as a consortium with Brookfield’s hefty balance sheet and the high-profile Cannon-Brookes as a figurehead for the investment group.
The Sydney rich lister has been a cheerleader for Australia to take rapid action on climate change and tap into its enormous renewable riches to make a clean energy economy a reality.
Cannon-Brookes is also putting his money where his mouth is. From maggots to mushrooms, solar power to batteries and driverless vehicles, he has for several years been putting his own money into various green investments both big and small.
Previously, they have ranged from injecting almost $80m in green energy lender Brighte to a $US100m ($139m) investment in driverless vehicle developer Zoox. His Grok Ventures portfolio includes solar start-up SunDrive as well as several food waste technology firms.
Late last year, Cannon-Brookes made his biggest move yet by announcing that he and wife Annie would transform Grok into the country’s first $2bn venture capital fund that would invest in climate-change-focused companies and ventures.
As well as Brighte, which is closing on a $1bn valuation, and SunDrive Solar, the Sydney solar panel start-up that is an integral part of the giant Sun Cable project in the Northern Territory, Grok has also backed Goterra, the maggot-based waste management business, mushroom-based faux meat venture Fable Food and Sydney business Vow, which makes pork, kangaroo and even buffalo meat from animal cells.
Last year, Grok backed electric bike start-up Zoomo as part of an $80m funding round alongside Atlassian co-founder Scott Farquhar’s own private investment house Skip Capital.
Cannon-Brookes has also previously put money into Tenacious Ventures, which described itself as Australia’s first dedicated agrifood tech venture capital firm, and HST Solar, a software platform for the design and engineering of solar projects.
He has also backed the likes of Soil Carbon Co, which has a method it says lets plants store more of the carbon they extract from the atmosphere in the ground, and August Robotics, a start-up that last year launched an autonomous disinfectant robot to clean up hotels involved in Covid-19 quarantine programs.
Other start-ups that Grok has backed include Canva, Culture Amp, SpaceX, nano-satellite start-up Fleet Space Technologies, and Spriggy.
There’s also an altruistic element to his spending. Cannon-Brookes has promised to personally commit $500m of his wealth to climate change philanthropy and green investments over the next decade in a bid to limit the earth’s warming to 1.5C.
AGL is his biggest climate challenge yet and a company he hopes to help reshape with his deep pockets.
“We’re in a very fortunate position to have a lot of resources,” Cannon-Brookes says.
“We make no bones that Grok and the family and my wife and I are putting those resources towards trying to be catalytic investors in ways that’ll drive Australia and the economy forward – and hopefully the world’s decarbonisation process forward too.”
More Coverage
ALP ‘up to decade late’ on renewables target: Triguboff
Billionaire real estate developer Harry Triguboff has forecast that Labor will be five to 10 years late in hitting its 82 per cent renewables target.
Too late to avert a gas crisis in Victoria, says Woodside
Woodside Energy says it’s too late to avoid an economically damaging gas shortfall in Victoria thanks to a decade of political opposition to the fossil fuel industry.