Brisbane fund investing in clean tech commercialisation

11/08/2008 10:50 AM

Brisbane's Springfield, in the city's southwest, is set to play a key role in developing Australian companies that supply environmentally friendly technology and products to Australians and the world, investors say.

Springfield-based fund manager Bakers Investment Group, Springfield Land Corp, Sydney-based Financial and Energy Exchange, and a major foreign bank are creating the Australian Cleantech Marketplace (ACM).

Nordic stock exchanges operator OMX, which designed the US Nasdaq's trading platform, is also involved in the ACM through its stake in the Financial and Energy Exchange.

The ACM is being headquartered in Springfield and will comprise support services to commercialise clean technology, helping to create companies that can remain private or use public listings to access local and international investors.

The ACM aims to establish in the next year a trading floor specialising in investment in domestic and international clean-tech companies with sharemarket listings.

It also aims to work with local business schools, such as the University of Southern Queensland, which has a Springfield sustainable business school, to provide financial analytical skills focused on the clean-tech industry.

There is also interest in establishing, several kilometres away, clean energy sources for Springfield, such as biomass and solar power plants.

Investors are increasingly moving into the clean technology sector as more countries commit to tackle their output of planet-warming gases from coal, oil and gas and encourage existing and emerging green power sources such as solar, tidal, wind and geothermal.

The world's leading industrial nations have agreed to the goal of slashing greenhouse gas levels. Negotiations will occur on encouraging China and India to adopt binding pollution reduction targets as soon as possible and by 2020 at the latest.

Leading Australian and international economists say a revolution in our use of fossil fuel energy must start soon if there is to be a reasonable chance of preventing severe global warming that risks displacing millions of people. Macquarie Bank senior economist Brian Redican says concern about economic damage from the Federal Government's plan to regulate greenhouse gas output is being eased by its commitment to provide financial help to households and industry to handle the transition.

"In aspects it's quite similar to the goods and services tax introduction. When the GST was introduced, we had quite significant personal income tax cuts. It's certainly possible you could do something similar with revenue generated from auctioning carbon permits to companies," Mr Redican said.

"Some industry sectors will be in the firing line - the energy providers and very intensive users of energy. But there are going to be opportunities as well. If overall household budgets aren't too much worse off, there will be new areas of demand springing up such as for service providers that will help people become more energy efficient.

"We're also going to see very big increases in demand for renewable and alternative energy sources."

He also said there would be a boost for legal and financial businesses providing support services to those industries.

Springfield offers an example.

Bakers Investment Group already has established indices built around listed clean energy domestic and international stocks. It is eyeing the ACM's potential to produce more clean energy investments for local and foreign investors.

"We are at the beginning of a generational shift towards clean technology underpinning a lot of the economic drivers for Australia. There is plenty of evidence to support that in the economic analysis done by many people," Bakers Investment Group managing director Ross Paul said. "International investors recognise that Australia has, for example, the best solar power intellectual property in the world but it isn't established in a way that investors can realistically invest in. It needs the right structures to make it a long-term commercial success, not just a quick venture capital injection that might or might not win," Mr Paul said.

"The ACM is about providing a broad marketplace that will commercialise clean technology in a way that is investor friendly and that will lead to the ability to grow Australian businesses that can be successful locally and also export their products and know-how."

Bakers Investment Group is also leading a bid under the ACM banner to host the Federal Government's Clean Energy Innovation Centre, with a proposed base in Springfield.

"We've had quite good Federal Government support for the ACM concept. They see it as supporting policy objectives for Australia to export clean tech capacity building and knowledge into Asian markets," he said. "We think you'll see an increasing number of clean tech companies locating into south east Queensland, around Springfield."

Kerrie Sinclair, the Courier Mail

Source: http://www.news.com.au/couriermail/

Back