Prior to establishing Actuity, our founder Director Greg Robertson managed investment funds in growth oriented companies for the period of over 10 years as an executive director of a private equity investment fund manager. In that period three successive wholesale private equity funds were raised with commitments from wholesale investors totalling in excess of $500 million. These funds made over 20 principal investments with the investee companies making in excess of 50 separate acquisitions.
Greg had the primary or joint responsibility for ten of these principal investments, with eight of these having been realised and two still held by the funds. Two of the investments were recognised as the “Expansion Investment of the Year” by the Australian Private Equity and Venture Capital Association (AVCAL) – Fone Zone in 2006 and Perkins Shipping in 2009. Greg remains non-executive chairman of one of the investments still held by the relevant funds.
Following closure of these funds Greg Robertson undertook a number of confidential consulting assignments before establishing two further private equity funds with commitments of $125 million. These funds made three principal investments with the investee companies making further acquisitions.
The performance of the investments for which Greg had primary or joint responsibility was as follows:
| Investment Name | Exit Date | Exit Method | Amount Invested* | Exit Amount** | IRR*** |
| Eduvest^ (Education and Language training) | Feb 2005 | Trade Sale | $7.90M | $6.61m | (4.58%) |
| Invocare Limited^ (Funeral, burial and cremation services) | Dec 2003 | IPO (ASX) | $15.01M | $41.28M | 51.25% |
| AAV Australia Pty Ltd (Post-production services, video and DVD manufacture | Nov 2003 | On Market takeover (ASX) | $5.17M | $20.15M | 136.65% |
| Fone Zone Group Ltd (Mobile phone retail) | Sept 2006 | IPO (ASX) | $7.95M | $49.97M | 99.93% |
| Betta Foods Group Pty Ltd (Confectionary manufacture) | Dec 2007 | MBO | $20.45M | $0M | n/a |
| New Price Retail Pty Ltd (Australian Pharmaceutical Industries Ltd (Health, beauty and lifestyle retail) | Mar 2007 | Trade sale/on market share sale (ASX) | $20.00M | $34.78M | 45.11% |
| Perkins Shipping Group Pty Ltd (Shipping and logistics) | Jun 2009 | Trade sale | $17.42M | $51.18M | 64.93% |
| Atom Supply Group Pty Ltd (mining and industrial products) | Jun 2009 | Trade sale | $8.80M | $35.95M | 25% |
| Staging Connections Ltd (venue based audio visual services) | May 2013 | On market takeover (ASX) | $33.44M | $8.44 | n/a |
| Strandbags Holdings (luggage, bags, accessories retail) | Feb 2014 | Sale to co-shareholder | $41.21M | $47.62M | 3.00% |
| Enviropacific Services Ltd (environmental remediation) | Feb 2021 | Sale to PE Fund | $27.25M | $76.02M | 20.38% |
| BIG Consolidated Ltd (field marketing, retail merchandising) | Nov 2021 | Sale to co-shareholder | $20.68M | $12.04M | (9.78%) |
Notes on Realised Investments
Past performance figures are not necessarily indicative of future returns and should be used as a general guide only, as future returns may bear no relationship to the historical information displayed. The returns shown represent past returns only and are not indicative of future returns of a syndicate, fund or investment. Returns can be particularly volatile in the short term and in some cases may be negative.
^ Eduvest and Invocare were existing investments of a pre-existing fund for which joint management was taken from February 2002.
*Amount invested includes transaction costs
** Exit amount includes all interest, dividends, franking credits and exit proceeds (net of transaction costs)
*** IRR is the pre-tax internal rate of return per annum, before fund management and success fees