Bid boosts wealth for Norgard, Newman

Two low-key Western Australian business people are set for a windfall outcome if a $1 billion takeover bid for Perth-founded mapping business Nearmap is successful.

Former leading insolvency practitioner Ross Norgard, a non-executive director of Nearmap, and managing director Rob Newman between them hold more than 6 per cent of the company worth a combined $73 million at the $2.10 a share bid lobbed this week by US private equity firm Thoma Bravo.

Mr Norgard has the biggest holding of the pair, with almost 24.6 million shares, representing around about 4.5 per cent of Nearmap.

Mr Newman, who has been involved in the business for more than a decade and moved to Sydney to run the firm in 2015, holds about 10.5 million shares, or about 2 per cent. 

However, Nearmap shares have not traded as high as the bid which was 39 per cent premium to their price on Friday prior to the bid becoming public. 

Nearmap, now Sydney-based, announced Thoma Brava approached it on July 6 and it had granted the suitor a week of exclusivity to determine whether a transaction can be reached. A $3 million break fee is payable if a deal isn't reached within six months.

Mapping technology has made significant wealth for WA investors.

The 2018 acquisition of Spookfish, another geospatial business out of Perth, by US-based Eagleview Technologies for almost $137 million came at a time when Navitas founder Rod Jones’s family company Hoperidge Enterprises held around 7 per cent of the business.

Nearmap’s origins lie in a business called QPSX which was established in 1987 in conjunction with Telstra and the University of Western Australia. It initially focused on research and development of telecommunications technology but shifted to licensing. It listed on the ASX in 2000.

As an ASX-listed entity, QPSX's focus was on commercialisation of a range of physical and life science technologies on a global basis. In 2006 it became Ipenica and in 2012 that company changed name to Nearmap.