Blue Sky and Burritos
Blue Sky Private Equity is continuing with its collection of different investments by expanding its Mexican food café concept.
The fund manager backed the opening of a Beach Burrito Company café at Bondi Beach last year.
Blue Sky investment director Robertson Brooks said it has been so successful, the fund manager has decided to back the opening of a second café in Sydney CBD.
“The first café, which launched 12 months ago, has been a massive hit at Bondi and is already turning a substantial profit,” Brooks said.
“The new store is likely to be located in or close to the Sydney central business district and should be up and running by the end of spring this year.”
Brooks said if the new store was successful, the funding manager would look at investing more equity in Beach Burrito to enable to create a franchise operation.
Blue Sky is also funding the expansion of another of its investments, Viking Rentals.
This Queensland company supplies portable toilets, power poles and temporary fencing and is growing rapidly due to the growth of property and infrastructure construction in the state.
“Viking is exceeding forecast and is capturing significant market share in Brisbane,” he said.
“We have agreed to fund an expansion of the construction services company and have bought up more shares.
“We expect the business to be Queensland’s number one portable toilet supplier sometime this year and it is hoped the expansion will also help drive the business interstate.”
Brooks said these two companies were the type of businesses it was looking for as investments in the new Blue Sky SME Investment Partners Fund.
“There is enormous potential in the SME market in Australia and we aim to aggressively seek out promising companies in search of capital with solid business models in growth sectors,” he said.
“The fund aims to raise $40 million to invest in eight to 10 businesses with returns of 20 per cent and above, during the life of the fund.”
The fund will invest in businesses valued at between $2-20 million, but will not invest in the agriculture, mining or direct property development sectors.
However, investments might be made into service industry companies working in these sectors.
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