Autos cued thoughts of afterlife

Tim Handley calls it his “near-death” experience.

In February, a $12.5 million capital raising by a company he co-founded and now chairs, flopped in spectacular fashion.

The then embattled LatAm Autos sought to raise the equivalent of more than half its market capitalisation on the same day as rival carsales.com.au revealed it was ramping up its South American business by buying the DeMotores website in Argentina.

Investors panicked. Bids were withdrawn, the issue was pulled and Mr Handley and his management team started receiving unsolicited offers for parts of the business at fire-sale prices. The vultures were circling.

History now shows that LatAm’s big-name shareholders, including former AFL chairman ­Michael Fitzpatrick, freelancer.com investor Simon Clausen and former CBA chairman Colin Galbraith, came to the rescue by underwriting a $10m convertible note. But it wasn’t pretty.

“I work out of Mike’s office in Melbourne,’’ Mr Handley says. “We were questioning our strategy so there were some robust discussions that needed to be had involving management. The ultimate outcome of those have borne fruit.

“It has definitely been a very intense nine to 12 months. But funnily enough, because we are all shareholders, we are all aligned.’’

Read the full story here — http://www.theaustralian.com.au/business/media/autos-cued-thoughts-of-afterlife/news-story/dbb85666fdfd34482df5e3d29186c638