Original Article by Anthony Macdonald, Yolanda Redrup and Kanika Sood – Australian Financial Review – Merricks Capital tips $40m into SA port refinance
Merricks Capital has capped off a $40 million senior credit facility with the ICAM Duxton Port Infrastructure Trust (IDPIT), which has developed a port in South Australia’s Eyre Peninsula.
Located in Lucky Bay, the port is used by about 300 South Australian grain growers to link to export markets as a cheaper alternative.
It includes a shallow-water port, grain storage bunkers and a self-discharging transhipment vessel to move the grain from the port to the vessel.
IDPIT chair Rob Chapman said the $40 million refinance will support T-Ports’ (operator of the Lucky Bay port) growth as it hunts for new clients.
Merricks Capital’s investment was via its Agriculture Credit Fund that launched in June, after a roughly $200 million raise.
The fund will invest in agriculture supply chain assets in Australia and New Zealand, building on its $1 billion investment in the sector so far.
It is eyeing opportunities in the $150 billion agriculture lending sector in Australia, where it thinks banks don’t offer enough value with inflexible capital structures that mismatch with agriculture’s cyclical nature.
Merricks Capital was founded in 2007 by Adrian Redlich, who previously worked with Citadel in Chicago as its head of quantitative alpha generation, global equities which included world’s then-largest fundamental long/short market neutral fund, according to the firm.
It now invests across equities, structured credit, infrastructure, commercial real estate, agriculture and commodities.
