Australasian laundry and dry cleaning company Laundromap, which counts former All Black Dan Carter as one of its early investors, plans to list on the NZX late in the second quarter.
Laundromap — which lets customers have laundry collected and delivered from home or work with the help of a cellphone application — is in the process of buying 20 to 30 laundry and dry-cleaning businesses in Australia and New Zealand.
It will be a compliance listing, which means the company will list is existing securities without making a public offer. The NZX listing bid runs counter to the trend of recent years of smaller issuers — and some big ones — opting for a listing on the ASX rather than their home exchange.
Chairman Rob Levison said the laundry and dry-cleaning sector was one of the few industries yet to face a technology shake-up.
After looking at some dry-cleaning businesses, he saw an opportunity to make better use of their plant and machinery, which typically operated about 30 to 40 per cent of the time.
The business, founded by Sam Macdonald from Auckland's Foster Capital and Perth-based wealth manager Adam Plowman, is already up and running. It has obtained technology under licence from Britain's Laundrapp for exclusive use in Australia and New Zealand.
Laundromap has about 70 investors and no one shareholder has a large, cornerstone stake. Carter and his business partner, former Crusaders player Ben Hurst, were among the first investors.
Levison said Carter had put "cold, hard cash" into the business and had agreed to help make it more visible.
Carter told the Herald his investment — one of a handful made towards the twilight of his career — was aimed at learning about the workings of business. "I've been an ambassador for a number of different brands.
"Now that I am nearing the end of my career, I was wanting to learn more about business so that started investing in various businesses and Laundromap was one of them."
One of Carter's first forays into business — clothing store GAS — came unstuck and was struck off the companies register in 2010.
His other investments have included NZX-listed retirement village company Arvida, Melbourne brewing company Brick Lane and New Zealand events company Urban Polo.
Former All Black Dan Carter, who has backed the NZX-bound Laundromap. Photo / Doug Sherring
Laundromap aims to own between 20 and 30 large "bricks and mortar" laundry and dry-cleaning companies in Australia and New Zealand.
Levison says with the overlaying app he expects to leverage or "sweat" the assets to make them more profitable by making better use of them.
Most are being used 30 to 40 per cent of the time — "so any extra volume is super profitable".
"You don't need more plant and equipment — you just need more hours of labour to run the machines."
"It is the bringing of scale together under one entity," Levison said.
Laundromap last year bought Perth's oldest drycleaner, Stannards, as part of its expansion drive.
Upon listing, Laundromap aims for ebitda of $3 million to $3.5m and to be able to offer a modest dividend.
Levison has been involved in four different "aggregation plays" in Australia ranging from mining services to the veterinary industry.
He said an NZX listing suited Laundromap. "There are a lot of listings every week on the ASX but the NZX had the right size and scale."
He said the dry-cleaning business was not "sexy" and there were no aspirations for markets further afield.
"We will be an Australia and New Zealand play. We are not ashamed about that. We can be a 'big' small company." CM Partners, which specialises in small to medium businesses, is the sponsoring broker.
