Qld family office buys local fintech; ex Clearview boss named chair
Navigate Global Payments, the foreign exchange and payments fintech which fell into receivership five months ago, has found a saviour – the Tozer & Co family office, which has now completed a $30 million recapitalisation.
The Tozer family office was founded by David Tozer after he left Houlihan Lokey in 2017 where he specialised in distressed and special situations. He’s since quietly built a portfolio which is worth more than $1 billion and employs circa 1500 people across a range of sectors.
Navigate Global was established in 2017 and grew to have some 50 staff in Sydney and Melbourne. It provides hedging and foreign exchange products and has what it describes as a world first end-to-end hedging and payment platform known as NaviHedge. That product allows users to identify, compare and execute FX derivatives contracts and track live payments.
David Tozer of Tozer & Co: Whilst he has been investing since a young age, he formally set up his family office in 2017.
Under Tozer & Co, Navigate Global will be rebranded Navinici Global Markets. The recapitalisation followed a KPMG-run process, and will include a management buy-in and supportive refinancing from Dinimus Capital Partners, a Melbourne-headquartered credit fund focused on local mid-market corporate opportunities. Simon Swanson, the former chief executive of ClearView, will become Navinici’s new chairman.
The company fell into administration after a difficult period during the COVID-19 pandemic. David Tozer confirmed the recapitalisation and told Street Talk there were “pain points” around foreign exchange services. “Service standards are genuinely terrible, the structuring capability is limited, the execution is single market orientated, and the price is high,” he said.
“With Navigate, we sorted the wheat from the chaff and found an end-to-end system, with sophisticated structuring advice and the ability to deliver institutional pricing power from global pools of capital which are unavailable to smaller players.”
The Tozer family office, notoriously private, has a sprawling portfolio. It houses investments in Cettire, the high-end online retailer which has seen its share price run 60 per cent in a year, industrial water treatment group Hydroshield, agricultural financier Agrifunder and digital banking firm Alex Bank, among others. There’s also a portfolio of pubs and restaurants, a distillery in the works and popular craft brewer, Grifter Brewing Co.
As for the soon-to-be-rebadged Navinici Global Markets, it “will fit neatly into our culture,” Tozer told this column.
David Tozer was one of The Australian Financial Review’s twenty top dealmakers under 40 in 2019 after helping global giant The Carlyle Group into ASX listed Pioneer Credit. Since then, things have been a bit quieter after he moved to the Sunshine Coast. But clearly, he has not stood still.
The transaction is expected to close on Monday. KPMG partners Ryan Eagle and David Hardy oversaw the receivership and ultimate sale.
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