This article is from the Australian Property Journal archive
THE journey for Rubicon Asset Management Limited appears to be over after administrators were appointed to the company last Friday.
RAML has appointed Paul Billingham and Michael Owen of Grant Thornton as voluntary administrators on Friday, this is after the company tried to soldier on following the collapse of its parent company seven months earlier.
In a short statement RAML said “the action was taken following careful review of RAML’s future by the RAML directors,”
RAML is the manager of three listed property trusts, the Rubicon America Trust, Rubicon Japan Trust and Rubicon Europe Trust.
RAML also has major shareholdings in RAT (11.7%), RJT (12.2%) and REU (9.4%). The trusts have been suspended from trading whilst their fate is decided.
All Allco and Rubicon related entities are now under administration – a far cry to the glory days. In November 2007 despite the emergence of the subprime crisis in the United States, Allco made a takeover bid for Rubicon Holdings, which is the parent company of RAML.
Allco paid $276 million to buy Rubicon from Gordon Fell who was a former Allco executive. He took the new position of executive chairman of the new Allco Rubicon real estate division.
At the time, Allco former chairman David Clarke hailed the deal. He said Rubicon had experienced strong growth in assets under management, revenue and profit since its establishment in 2001.
“This acquisition will significantly enhance Allco’s asset origination and funds management capabilities in the real estate sector. This step accelerates our business plans in this area,” he added.
And Fell said one of the main decisions behind the sale was due to Rubicon’s $150 million debt facility which is due to expire in June 30 2008. He added that Rubicon wanted to expand and needed capital.
And both Clarke and Fell denied the buyout was not a result of the credit squeeze brought on by the US subprime crisis.
The deal saw the Allco and Rubicon merged entities have over $9.13 billion in assets under management. RAML alone would control $5.4 billion in AUM.
RAML now has $4 billion of assets under management.
In April, Record Realty’s lender BOS International appointed administrators to the trust.
And in November last year, Allco collapsed after its lending syndicate including Westpac Bank, National Australia Bank and the Commonwealth Bank appointed Steve Sherman and Peter Gothard of Ferrier Hodgson as receivers whilst at same time Allco appointed Tony McGrath and Joseph Hayes of McGrathNicol as the voluntary administrators.
Rubicon Holdings also collapsed at the same time.
Australian Property Journal
