A group of Perth investors including former Macquarie Bank director Simon Lyons and Prime West director John Bond have taken control of listed irrigation company Australian Watwerwise Solutions Ltd.
A group of Perth investors including former Macquarie Bank director Simon Lyons and Prime West director John Bond have taken control of listed irrigation company Australian Watwerwise Solutions Ltd.
A group of Perth investors including former Macquarie Bank director Simon Lyons and Prime West director John Bond have taken control of listed irrigation company Australian Watwerwise Solutions Ltd.
Mr Lyons has been appointed managing director of AWS, which is currently in administration, and plans to build a substantial wholesale and trade-focused irrigation business.
AWS previously owned Hugall & Hoile, a major retailer of irrigation products, and Turf & Irrigation, which ran a similar business on the east coast.
It sold those businesses to competitor Total Eden Watering Systems in August, which in turn had previously been acquired by listed company Alesco Ltd.
Mr Lyons said AWS retained four AWS-branded stores, which supplied irrigation and drilling contractors, and its Rain One wholesale stores, which have a national distribution network for pumps, garden products and irrigation products.
"I think there is a really significant busines here to be built," Mr Lyons told WA Business News.
He said a syndicate of investors, through special purpose company Prime West (AWS) Pty Ltd, had bought AWS's $8.8 million in debt from lender Westpac Bank.
The investors include Mr Lyons, insolvency specialist and KordaMentha co-founder Oren Zohar, and fomer Ernst & Young associate director John Mancini, who have been appointed directors of AWS.
They have been backed by Prime West directors John Bond, David Schwartz and Jim Litis, who are best known as property investors.
However Mr Lyons noted that Mr Schwartz was also executive chairman of Welshpool company Pascoe's Pty Ltd, which is a manufacturer and supplier of industrial products.
Mr Lyons spent many years in Perth as a stockbroker, initially with Porter Western and later with Macquarie Bank after it acquired the local firm.
He subsequently spent two years in Sydney and has spent the past three years travelling in Asia, building financial services businesses for Macquarie.