EIGHT WA firms are being invited to take part in Corporation Builders’ Singapore program that introduces Australian firms to Singaporean investors.
Corporation Builders’ executive director James Paulsen said it was the first time WA firms were being included.
The capital raising, investment facilitating and investment readiness firm took other Australian companies to Singapore in 1997 and 1998.
“The firms we take to Singapore have to be in a position of investment readiness,” Mr Paulsen said.
“They need to be able to accept investments of at least $3 million. The Singaporeans are not going to invest less.”
Mr Paulsen said the Department of Commerce and Trade was prepared to sponsor five to eight firms for the two day excursion.
“Even though we’ve isolated eight firms, we’re still interested in applications from other WA firms,” he said.
Mr Paulsen said the first day of the Singapore trip involved fine tuning any cross border trade and investment issues the companies might have.
“The second day is the investor onslaught,” he said. “But not all of the successes have come from investment. Some companies are talking about licencing deals.”
Corporation Builders has been running its series of industry specific investment readiness workshops in WA for more than a year.
“Last year we saw 1,600 firms through Australia. Of those, only about 20 were investment ready,” Mr Paulsen said.
“But several hundred were in a position to achieve investment readiness in one to three years.”
Mr Paulsen said Corporation Builders now offered investment readiness workshops for firms interested in moving to that stage.
It also helps companies market themselves to investors.
“Investment marketing is critical when companies are looking for investment,” Mr Paulsen said.
“We work directly with 14 venture capital firms in Australia and do extensive investment marketing in Singapore. We have a good idea of their investment criteria and can refer companies to them.”
