Caniwi Capital adds new partner

March 29 (BusinessDesk) – Wellington investment and advisory firm Caniwi Capital has added a former Lehman Brothers senior executive as an equity partner to its team.

With a private war-chest of $70 million available for commercial property and private equity acquisitions, the three-year-old boutique firm will be joined by James Gould, an ex-patriate New Zealander who returned this year from eight years with Lehmans, mostly in Sydney, founder Troy Bowker said.

Formerly at Wellington law firm Rudd Watts, Gould has extensive City of London experience, having worked with one of the top five City firms, Allen and Overy and holds an MBA from France’s leading business school, Insead, before moving to Lehman, where he spent several years in Australia as executive director, investment banking.

Gould will focus on corporate advisory and private equity work.

“We now have a team of three experienced investment bankers all with extensive market knowledge, contacts from years of front office London and New York experience,” said Bowker, a member of Prime Minister John Key’s taskforce considering establishment of a financial services back-office “hub” in New Zealand.

Caniwi was the adviser to AxiaNetmedia, a Canadian firm that sought, unsuccessfully, involvement in the government’s ultrafast broadband initiative and late last year purchased the New Zealand packaging firm, Stowers.

Other directors of Caniwi are ex-JP Morgan senior investment banker Simon Treacy, former global treasurer for the global hedge fund Tudor Investment Corp Mark Withy, Des Gittings, and Michael Stanley.

Bowker told BusinessDesk the firm has “capacity to invest another $20 million in private equity and $50million in commercial Property before taking a break”.

“Our private equity fund is only looking at the SME market, so companies with EBITDA in the $500,000-to-$3 million range. We don’t offer securities so have no public reporting obligations, which also means we can move very fast to invest.”

The Stowers investment was going “very, very well”, with a substantial lift in demand following the Christchurch earthquake.

(BusinessDesk)

BUDGET 2012:
Parliament Debate Live - Video Of Budget 2011
Keith Ng Interactive Graphic: How the Budget Breaks Down
BUDGET 2012 - FULL COVERAGE: Reports / Analysis - Press Kit - Reaction (from everybody) - Previews (from everybody) - Pre-Budget Announcements

Gordon Campbell: On the Budget’s Spreadsheet Victories

It wasn’t as if expectations were sky high, exactly. Chances are, it was always more likely that we’d be seeing Bigfoot rampage through the Beehive lock-up than catch a glimpse of a credible growth agenda from this government. More >>

Sludge Budget Report - Short The Dollar! MEMO: To international bankers FROM: C.D. Sludge Please short the dollar! It'll be good for both you and us. And you know you want to. Greexit, Eurogeddon... watch out... flight to quality and all that. Follow your instincts. The NZ Debt Management Office has been so surprised at the unprecedentedly low interest rates that it can borrow at that it has already entirely pre-funded the 2013 fiscal deficit - all $8 billion of it! More >>

Pattrick Smellie Comment: Doddling along the best we can hope forCriticising Budgets for lacking vision or imagination is like shooting fish in a barrel, but even so, this year's Budget again feels like a missed opportunity. Perhaps it's the intrusion of real world needs that means the government couldn't make better political use of the $558.8 million it expects to gather in its first partial asset sale. More >>