Hello Nachode,
Stuart here. I am pleased you and others have done well with Nearmap shares.
After founding Nearmap and then selling it to ipernica, I moved to Europe.
Shortly after, Australia introduced some new taxes: if you were an Australian tax resident and then moved domicile overseas, and still had Australian assets, then capital gain tax was doubled to 50%.
At the same time, it became clear the the CEO we had appointed was problematic, and the company was at real risk. This is the same CEO that I had previously tried to incentivise by assigning him some of my share options.
I had a few months, while still an Australian tax resident, to make a decision. The two factors combined prompted my decision to sell out of Nearmap.
It is good that the company survived and is doing well. Of course it would be nice to have kept the shares, but as a very wise person once said to me, hindsight is always perfect, and there is no point in regretting past decisions. I’m comfortable, and had the fun of creating an entire new industry as well as giving humanity a spatial history of the world for future generations. I’m happy with that.
Regards,
Stuart
p.s. I’ve developed some interesting new technology, making it possible and affordable to capture very high resolution complete coverage at a continental scale every few months. Perhaps I’ll start another company with this technology. However, if I do, it won’t be in Australia given my experience with the tax regime there.
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