Blue Sky buys New Zealand tour operator

Two individual investors make up the consortium. They are Brett Godfrey, co-founder and former CEO of Virgin Blue and current deputy chairman of Tourism Australia and Auckland Airport, and Scott Malcolm, an investment banking professional who founded independent corporate advisory firm Greenstone Partners. The size of the transaction was not disclosed.

Active Adventures ran its first trip in 1996, showing three clients select parts of New Zealand. This grew into a business with 30 staff and 60 guides that specializes in physically challenging outdoor adventures for small groups (of no more than 14). South America was added to the list of itineraries in the early 2000s, followed by the Himalayas in 2010 and European Alps in 2012.

As part of the deal, one of the company’s three shareholders, Phil Boorman, has divested his entire stake. The other two, Robin Wiseley and Michelle Trapski, retain a significant shareholding and will both join the new board.

“The company has grown to a point where we were able to attract the skills and investment capabilities of our new partners,” Wiseley said in a statement, adding that turnover has more than doubled in the last four years. “There are so many options in terms of growth through acquisition, development of new niche brands and potentially new offshore destinations.”

Experiential tourism is also an investment theme for Australia-based Quadrant Private Equity. Last year, it agreed to buy three assets: luxury passenger rail service operator Great Southern Rail; Rottnest Express, a Perth-based ferry and tour service; and Cruise Whitsundays, a North Queensland operator known for its cruises to the Whitsunday Islands and trips to the Great Barrier Reef. The plan is to create a platform and cross-sell a selection of different trips.

Blue Sky had A$2.7 billion ($2.1 billion) in fee-earning assets under management as of year-end 2016, up from A$1.7 billion 12 months earlier. It is targeting A$5 billion by 2019, across private equity and venture capital, private real estate, real assets and hedge funds. Over the last 10 years, the listed manager has delivered an annual average net return of 16.4%.

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• Topics
• Australasia
• Consumer
• Buyouts
• New Zealand
• Blue Sky Private Equity
• Australia