Last week saw Catriona Wallace and I hit the road (or the skies to be more precise) for the roadshow on the upcoming acquisition of Flamingo by Cre8tek. Accompanied by our future fellow Cre8tek directors, we had meetings with over 35 different investor groups in Perth, Hong Kong, Melbourne and Sydney over the course of four and a half days.
It was a great experience for Catriona and I to talk about not only the Flamingo story to date but the plans for the business going forward, and to gain an understanding as on what topics interested and resonated with investors. There were some quite noticeable differences in the different geographic locations with each city displaying it’s own and quite different investment personality style, but the response throughout was extremely positive and we gained a lot of valuable insight from our discussions.
One thing that did surprise us was how few women we encountered during the course of the week. We’ve all read the stats about the lack of gender diversity that still exists in financial markets, but it really hit home as we made our way from city to city, encountering another woman on only one occasion despite meeting with what must have been close to 100 people over the week!
By the time we made it to Sydney we were starting to feel the fatigue of two nights spent on planes and days spent racing from meeting to meeting, but were completely reinvigorated by the opportunity to celebrate the acquisition and upcoming re-listing of Cre8tek at an event at Stone and Chalk. We had all of the Australian members of the Flamingo team and many of their family members present, plus a number of long term Flamingo investors, other members of the Stone and Chalk business family, potential new investors, and some media. It was a great chance not only to reflect on the journey to date, but to thank and publicly acknowledge the fabulous Flamingo team for the important role they’ve played in getting us here. The only shame was that the US team members obviously couldn’t be there, but they were definitely there in spirit and with Catriona back State-side this week I’m sure they’ll have a celebration of their own in the not too distant future.
In addition to the opportunity to speak with existing and potential Cre8tek investors and understand what was important to them, the week was also a great opportunity to spend time with our future fellow directors. As I wrote here at the time we announced the transaction, one of the great appeals was the connection we had formed with them and the shared vision we had for the business going forward. The pressure that this kind of travel and meeting schedule creates is an excellent way of stress testing your ability to work together, and I’m happy to say we had an absolute blast as we participated in this investor-driven version of The Amazing Race.
We’re in the final stages of the transaction now, and more confident than ever that we’ve made the very best choice for Flamingo going forward.