When Macquarie Infrastructure and Real Assets (MIRA) approached Jarden in 2013 to discuss an initial public offering (IPO) of shares in its subsidiary, Oceania Healthcare, it had good reason to feel optimistic about the company’s prospects.

Oceania Healthcare is one of New Zealand’s leading providers of residential aged care and retirement village services, as well as a developer of both aged care and retirement facilities. The company had a strong business model, with significant growth potential from both an ageing population and the company’s brownfield development portfolio.

The goal was to reduce Oceania’s company debt and create greater financial flexibility for the business to pursue development opportunities at prime urban sites around New Zealand, while ensuring its majority shareholder company MIRA retained a majority stake.

But it would be three years before MIRA considered the time was right to formally embark on the process of raising $200 million, and appointed Jarden to act as joint lead manager alongside Deutsche Craigs and Macquarie Capital in 2016.

‘The team at MIRA knew there was a lot of opportunity in front of the company, so they took their time to come to market,’ says Brent Pattison, Director of Investment Banking at Jarden. ‘They were very disciplined and very patient as they waited for market conditions that better represented the value in the company. They deserve full credit because that’s a hard thing to do.’

Jarden worked collaboratively with Deutsche Craigs and Macquarie Capital to carry out significant marketing and investor engagement in New Zealand, Australia and Asia. The team met with over 50 institutional investors, educating investors on the strength of Oceania’s business model and the New Zealand regulatory landscape. 

The opportunity attracted strong  interest, an outcome Brent attributes in part to the work of Jarden’s Head of Institutional Research, Arie Dekker.  ‘Arie is trusted by institutional investors and his research in the aged care and retirement sector is extremely well-regarded.

‘It is an attractive sector in terms of growth, Oceania Healthcare’s facilities are excellent and the fact that MIRA retained a majority shareholding demonstrated their confidence in its future potential. That’s encouraging for new investors.

‘Even though we launched the IPO in a difficult window, we were able to distinguish this business from the market volatility. Oceania Healthcare was well received by the market, and has proven to be a good investment with growth of over 30 percent in the first eight months.’

Oceania Healthcare was a significant addition to the NZX, with a market capitalisation on listing of $482.1 million. It was the only IPO on the NZX in 2017, the second largest offer since 2014, and was named NZ Equity Transaction of the Year at the 2018 INFINZ awards.

‘An IPO is not a simple transaction to execute, but the rewards of being on the side of it are substantial,’ says Oceania CEO Earl Gasparich. ‘We have been able to use the capital we raised to accelerate our development pipeline, and start to unlock the growth potential within the business.’

‘The joint lead managers at Jarden, Deutsche Craig and Macquarie Capital are a group of highly talented individuals who did a tremendous job with this transaction.’