pratt family’s investment guru alex waislitz

A very private family goes public: Pratt family’s investment guru Alex Waislitz to run listed group
Published 04 September 2013 11:04, Updated 05 September 2013

Alex Waislitz says he’s not too daunted by the prospect of working with a publicly-traded company. The prospect of the Pratt family taking part of their Visy empire public has always tantalised the business community, particularly the nation’s investment bankers.

A few years ago, we got close when packaging group Pact, owned by Richard Pratt ’s daughter Fiona and her husband Raphael Germinder, looked at an IPO.

But on Tuesday, it finally happened. Well, sort of.

Alex Waislitz is set to become the non-executive chairman of listed cashbox Wentworth Holdings after his investment group Thorney struck a deal on a $50 million recapitalisation of the company.

The business will be renamed Thorney Opportunities Ltd. The deal means Waislitz will manage the money of ordinary punters for the first time.

Activist strategy
It’s a public role in more ways than one. As well as marking Waislitz’s first time at the helm of a public company, Waislitz will be running the company as an activist investor, using a strategy that has delivered him big returns in the past: take a big stake in an underperforming listed company, agitate for change in terms of direction and management and help drive a turnaround.

This means Waislitz could find himself in a few public battles with directors and managers who disagree with his view of a company's performance.

The man himself doesn’t seem daunted.

“After more than 20 years’ investing in a purely private capacity, I am excited by the opportunity of providing public access to the skills and experience of the Thorney team and pursuing absolute returns,” Waislitz said in a statement to the ASX.

Track record
The success of Thorney has been nothing short of incredible. The story started back in 1992, when Richard Pratt gave his son-in-law (Waislitz is married to the late Pratt’s daugher Heloise) $1.35 million in Amcor shares.

The seed capital for Thorney was further expanded when Waislitz engineered the sale of a non-core asset in the Pratt empire, a paper mill in Scotland, and was allowed to keep the $20 million proceeds.

Thorney, which has assets reportedly worth more than $1 billion and has become an increasingly important part of the Pratt family’s $5.95 billion fortune, has focused mainly on small and medium cap stocks where Waislitz can get a significant stake and, on some occasions, board seats to push his case for change.

His recent investment success stories include Skilled Engineering (up 40 per cent in the last three years) and biotechnology darling Mesoblast, which has seen its share price grow five-fold over the past five years.

According to a report in The Australian Financial Review , Mesoblast founder and chief executive Silviu Itescu (himself a member of the Rich 200) is one of a number of high profile investors who will be backing Waislitz at Thorney Opportunities.

The company will raise $30 million from institutional investors and a further $10 million from retail investors.

Legendary fund manager Geoff Wilson is another who is set to invest.

“Ordinary shareholders are getting a chance to put their money with one of Australia’s great investors,” he told the AFR on Tuesday.

It will be fascinating to see how the investing public approach this rare chance to invest alongside a Rich 200 member.