Covid was a time that many people reconsidered career, life and personal preferences. This was the leading catalyst to the management buyout of a large format graphics company who services and specialises in the aviation industry. With the widely publicised impact that covid had on the commercial aviation industry the spending and resulting impact this had on the director of the company brought about a decision of sale and retirement.
As the company emerged from covid restrictions and clientele started cautiously spending, the Director discussed the potential sale to the General Manager of the company as a logical result ensuring the Director received a value for their client base. Historical financials show the true impact of the business which essentially was grounded along with their clients’ planes. The foresight and knowledge the General Manager had was the future spending requirements of Virgin, Qantas, JetStar, REX, RAAF (defence force), etc. The underlying knowledge and belief in the uplift on spending on not only large format external graphics but also internal plane signage was the reason for the acquisition to occur.
The business was sold under a share sale agreement and included the commercial premises the company operated out of in Melbourne. Which resulted in funding requirements for both a business loan and commercial mortgage. Logic again in the share sale agreement was to preserve the existing service agreements without the risk or re-tendering process. Preserving the growing revenue and future revenue sources was a critical component to the overall lend and financier comfort, given poor financial performance coming out of covid.
The purchaser had attempted to secure funding with several banks and mortgage providers however was unsuccessful. The referral to Atlas came from one of the financiers in the market who knew of our skill set to place a transaction that had some impairments on the application and their inability to assist with the acquisition.