Malaga bottled water company Refresh hopes to raise $3 million through a public offer to fund an expansion into the eastern seaboard water market.
Malaga bottled water company Refresh hopes to raise $3 million through a public offer to fund an expansion into the eastern seaboard water market.
If successful, the company, backed by chairman Leon Ivory and founding directors Henry Heng and Edmund Teo, will achieve a total market capitalisation on listing in late December of $9.5 million.
The proceeds of the 15 million, 20-cent share offer will be channelled toward new production and distribution facilities in Queensland and South Australia.
Director Edmund Teo said the IPO was well timed to coincide with strong market conditions and would take the business to another level.
“It is an exit strategy for the directors,” he said. “But it’s not like we are the taking the money and running.
“The directors plan to stay for a few more years. It’s a good business. We know the business intimately.”
Refresh has been operating in Western Australia for the past eight years and has capacity to produce 146,000 litres of distilled water per day.
Over the past two years the company has acquired LAqua, Sweet Rain and Oxyfresh. In October, Refresh acquired Drink-Pure in Toowoomba, Queensland.
The vision of the directors is to set up a factory in every major Australian city.
Mr Ivory is a former merchant banker who recently joined the Refresh board.
In the 1990s, Mr Ivory was behind initial plans to develop a place called Vasse Newtown in the South West – a development now being driven by other owners. He was also involved in the tax-effective vineyard scheme Bridgeland Estate, though that failed to attract sufficient investors.
Most recently, as a director of listed VRI Biomedical, he became embroiled in a public stoush with major shareholder, Tony Barton’s Australian Heritage Group.
He is currently director of Bluewater Capital Ltd, which first came to the attention of WA Business News when it was granted responsibility for finance and administration of Bone Medical Ltd, the result of a restructuring deal at Revenir Ltd just more than 12 months ago.
Also making it onto the Refresh board are Murray Smith and Michael Keong.
In addition to bottled water, Refresh claims to be the largest distributor of distillation systems in Australia, through the Durastill and Waterwise brands.
In the year to June 30 2005, total revenue of $2.29 million was realised.
Refresh stands with about 200 other bottled water businesses operating in Australia and meeting the demands for 550 million litres of bottled water annually.
Coca Cola Amatil has captured around a quarter of the $400 million spent annually on water in Australia.
