Ahead of the curve

Next Thursday I will be presenting a webinar on the secrets of Australia’s billionaires, to coincide with the release of the BRW Rich 200.

One of the things I will be talking about is timing – it’s one of the things that sets really wealthy entrepreneurs apart from the rest of us.

A great example of this is being played out right now, with Japanese electronics giant Toshiba closing in on a $US2 billion deal to buy a smart-meter maker called Landis + Gyr.

While Landis + Gyr is a Swiss-based company, it has a big Australia connection.

The business is owned by Bayard Capital, an investment group set up by dual Irish and Australian citizen Cameron O’Reilly in 2003.

Bayard, which has an office in Sydney, received $100 million in funding from prominent Australian investors, including the Fairfax family’s vehicle Marinya Holdings, two wings of the Smorgon family and Seven billionaire Kerry Stokes.

One of Bayard’s first deals was to buy Landis + Gyr for $250 million in 2004. Over the next seven years, as governments around the world moved to implement measures to tackle climate change, demand for smart-meters has soared.

Landis + Gyr has won contracts around the globe (including in China, the Middle East, Europe and Australia) and become the biggest smart-meter company in the world by revenue – an impressive $US1.5 billion, according to a report from Reuters.

Now the business is up for sale, with a price of $US2 billion likely after interest from a number of parties.

That’s going to mean a handsome payoff for the likes of Marinya Holdings owners John B Fairfax and his son Nicholas, who are reported to own about 10% of the company by the Australian Financial Review.

This is one of those deals that looks so easy in hindsight. Buy a smart-meter company on the cheap, and ride the climate change wave to an easy profit – of course governments would want to get better at collecting data on energy usage as they move to tackling one of the biggest issues confronting the planet.

But being able to spot a trend – and then raise serious money to back your judgement – is where the real skill is.

To the early mover go the spoils.