Fund bridges oxygen healing and IT

By SIMON COLLINS

Top rugby players will soon be able to soothe their wounds in oxygen chambers in the four main centres, thanks to a $1.4 million deal by a fast-growing Auckland investment fund, i-cap.

The fund is also finalising investments of about $4 million in the company planning tours of the Auckland Harbour Bridge, and about $10 million in the Christchurch sportswear business Canterbury Ltd.

All these deals will be dwarfed by a $US100 million ($250 million) international private equity fund, to be domiciled in Ireland, which it plans to launch in October.

One of its two Auckland-based managing directors, English-born Nick Lodge, will move to Britain to market that fund, which will be targeted at high net worth individuals in Europe with a minimum investment of $US120,000 ($300,000).

Seventy per cent of its investments will be in the US, where i-cap's chairman, New Zealand-born business professor David Teece, is based. The remaining 30 per cent - almost $100 million in NZ terms - will be in NZ and Australia.

"These are private equity investments, so we are not beholden to the public equity market," Mr Lodge said. "These are businesses that by definition are scaleable.

"There is actually some real benefit from getting into these businesses here in NZ where your costs are lower than in the US, and then taking them to market in offshore markets."

The NZ fund's investment in the North Shore's Oxygen Centre is on a much smaller scale. Centre manager Peter Young, a diving industry veteran who established the business last year, plans to open branches in the other three main centres.

Hyperbaric Oxygen Treatments' concentrated oxygen accelerates healing of wounds ranging from rugby bruises to diabetic ulcers.

Mr Young says patients include "the top rugby players" and at least one member of the NZ Olympic team.

i-cap's investment gives it a 43 per cent stake in the business.

The fund is still negotiating with the company planning bridge tours, but expects to invest about $2 million in equity plus a $2 million loan. BridgeClimb director Maurice Crosby said construction of a $2 million walkway would start soon, with tours to start in December.

The fund's Canterbury investment will help to finance that company's expansion into the British market and will give i-cap a stake of just under 30 per cent. Canterbury is wholly owned by Professor Teece.

i-cap has also disclosed two Auckland software-company investments:

* $3.8 million for a 19 per cent stake in Owlcentral, which generates standard documents such as trust deeds and bank records.

* $1.5 million for 45 per cent of NextWindows, a revolutionary touch screen technology.

The deals bring the total portfolio of i-cap's equity fund, i-cap Equity Partners (IEP), to $32 million, with a further $4 million raised so far for a mezzanine debt fund, i-cap Mezzanine Partners (IMP).

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HBOT

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