Eildon Capital

Overview

Eildon Capital is currently a subsidiary of the publicly listed investment company CVC Limited.  The company focuses on high yield debt and investments in the property sector. They plan to raise between 2 and 10 million dollars via the IPO, with a market capitalisation on completion between 24 and 32 million. In the prospectus, they state that their goal for debt yields on property are between 12 and 18 percent before management fees and taxes. As a Mezzanine finance company, security on these loans will usually be equity in the ventures themselves.

There’s a lot of things to like about this prospectus; an experienced and stable management team, a good track record and at least on the surface a reasonable price, with every one dollars’ worth of shares bought giving you $1.01 of net assets in the newly created company. I’ve got a few misgivings though, and there are three main reasons I won’t be taking part.

The property sector 

As a long term believer in the idea that the housing market is overdue a downward correction, it’s hard to think of who would be more exposed to this than a company specialising in high yield property development loans. A substantial portion of their current assets are mezzanine loans to apartment developments in Melbourne, the Gold Coast and Brisbane. When I think “housing bubble,’ an apartment development in the Gold Coast is probably one of the first things that comes to mind. While Eildon stress in the prospectus that they have ways to mitigate their risk, if they are getting double digit yields on loans it’s hard to believe they are able to protect themselves that well.

Vanda Gould

Another thing that makes me a little suspicious of this listing is a controversy that has been hanging around Eildon capital’s current parent company, CVC Limited. Founded in 1985, one of CVC Limited’s founding directors and chairman for many years was a guy called Vanda Gould. Vanda Gould resigned in 2014 after becoming embroiled in a lengthy dispute over tax avoidance with the ATO. He recently lost an appeal to the high court over a tax bill of more than $300 million for companies he owns and advises, and is also facing criminal charges relating to tax avoidance that could potentially land him in jail. The guy seems like one of the real characters of Australian investing, his chairman’s letters for CVC would regularly get pretty philosophical, quoting Shakespeare and referencing interest rates from ancient Rome and Babylonia. While these days he holds no position at CVC and you won’t even find his name on the website, it’s hard to believe he is completely disentangled from all of CVC’s various affairs. To give an example of a potential continuing connection, over 10% of the shares of Eildon capital will be held by a company called Chemical Trustees Limited on listing, a company that had its assets frozen in 2010 due to alleged tax avoidance in relation to Vanda Gould. I have no idea if there is still any connection between Chemical Trustees and Vanda Gould, but if they end up having to sell their holding in a hurry or the shares are seized it could have a significant effect on the share price.

Pricing concerns

The last thing going against this prospectus is CVC Limited’s current share price. With net assets of $214 million as of the end of the last financial year, CVC’s market capitalisation has hovered around the 196 million dollar mark for the last couple of months. This means every 1 dollar you invest in CVC Limited buys you $1.09 of net equity on CVC’s balance sheet. That’s 8 cents more than you will get of Eildon Capital’s equity if you take part in the IPO. As CVC currently owns Eildon capital, this could mean that the IPO is priced above the current market price. Of course, it’s impossible to know for sure what assets exactly on CVC’s balance sheet the market is undervaluing, but it could just as well be the Eildon capital assets as anything else. If this is the case, there is a real danger the share price will drop by around 6% or 7% upon listing. If you are a long term believer in the company this may not bother you, but it does mean you may need to commit to holding these shares for quite a while if you want to make money.

Verdict

Despite all these issues, the target returns will no doubt be enticing for some investors, and if you have an appetite for a bit of risk and are not currently that exposed to the housing industry taking part in this IPO could make sense. For me though, my scepticism of the housing market along with concerns about the Vanda Gould connection makes me happy to give this one a miss.

The offer closes on the 24^th of January.

Ardrea Resources

Overview

It’s hard not to be charmed by the prospectus of Ardea resources. Something about the long term consultant getting his first shot at a Managing Director role, the all or nothing plan of investing all money raised into exploratory digging in the next few years and the hopeful and earnest pictures of gold nuggets, abandoned mine sites and old letters makes it feel like something out of a Poldark episode.

The whole project seems to be a creative way Heron Resources management have dreamt up to finance exploration of some of their existing tenements they think look promising without annoying their shareholders who would rather they focused on their existing mine. Ardrea resources will be given the tenements and in exchange Heron Resource shareholders will be given over half of the shares in Ardrea Resources. Ardrea will then raise 6 million dollars through the IPO selling off the other shares

While it's an elegant solution, it is a rather expensive way of doing things. The IPO will apparently cost $900,000, or 15% of the money raised and that’s before the additional salaries of board members and directors that will need to be paid each year are factored in. The cynic in me thinks that if those gold nugget pictures that are talked about so excitedly in the prospectus where compelling enough Heron Resources management would have convinced shareholders to let the company do the drilling themselves, though perhaps that's unfair.

Analysis

The payoff tree for Ardrea is pretty simple: The two year exploration will either turn up something that warrants a mine, or the company will have burnt through nearly all its money on the exploration drilling and the shares will be close to worthless. This means that in order to evaluate this deal we need to decide on two things: how much the share price will be if the drilling turns up something, and the likelihood of that happening.

To try and quantify what the Ardrea share price would be if the drilling work uncovers a feasible mine site we can use the share price of Heron Resources itself. As it stands currently, Heron Resources has had the Woodlawn mine approved as economically feasible with works due to start early next year. With this information supposedly factored into the share price, the company has a market cap of just under 52 million dollars. If you subtract the net cash the mine has of around 24 million dollars, it means the market value of the Heron Resources mining site plus any other remaining tenements is around 28 million dollars. The market cap on listing of Ardrea Resources will be 14.3 million if fully subscribed, meaning that if Ardrea was to find a mine site that a feasibility report showed was worth developing, the market cap and share price doubling to 28.6 million and 40 cents respectively may be a reasonable assumption. I know this may be overly simplistic, but there seem to be so many unknowns in regards to what could be found that trying to be more specific seems futile.

Trying to assign a percentage to the drilling finding anything is harder still. I’m not going to even pretend that phrases like “’wallaby style magnetite epidote alteration’’ mean anything to me, so the Prospectus isn’t really much help in this regard. There are a couple of things though that make me feel this percentage isn’t that great. Firstly, these tenements are not exactly new, with the Prospectus mentioning they have been looked at by previous miner’s numerous times, which can hardly be a good sign. Secondly, I keep coming back to the idea that if this really was a great opportunity, there must be easier ways to raise 6 million than through an IPO. Surely there would be private investors who would jump at the chance to put up money if they thought this opportunity was worthwhile. With all this in mind, I find it hard to be confident that the drilling prospects are above 50%.

With that low of a chance of a payoff, the deal doesn't seem that enticing.

There’s one more reason I’m reluctant to invest in this Prospectus. One of the conditions of the prospectus is that Heron Resources shareholders get priority if the IPO is oversubscribed. This means that for the average non-Heron Resources holding investor you are in a catch 22 situation: If the Heron Resources shareholders know this is a good deal, all or most of the shares will be snapped up before reaching the general public, and you will be left out. If, on the other hand, Heron Resources Shareholders think that this drilling project isn’t worth it, your bid will probably be filled.

Verdict

This one is a pass for me. If I had shares in Heron Resources it might make more sense, but as it stands there are too many potential downsides to make the potential payoff worthwhile.