Tom Hardwick Email & Phone Number

Sydney, Nsw, Au

Sydney , Nsw, Au

Growth capital for founders looking to scale profitable businesses.

I am currently focused on three core projects:1. Coogee Capital is a corporate advisory business that David Baxby and I have formed to assist company founders/entrepreneurs and family businesses achieve optimal value through business growth and profit expansion, acquisitions and disposals, capital injections and exit options. We recently acquired a 50% interest in REDIMED Pty Ltd, a medical clinics business focused on treating injured workers quickly and effectively that was seeking our support to provide some liquidity for the founder ahead of a national expansion program. We raised $27m from our network of investors to fund our investment. 2. I invest in, and help others invest in childcare properties, seeking assets that offer strong prospects for capital growth with a reliable underlying income stream. This includes the ASX-listed HealthCo Health and Wellness REIT, where I sit on its Advisory Board.3. Coogee Wine Room is a European-inspired wine bar and restaurant that we opened at Coogee Beach in 2019, with a wine list in excess of 500 wines, a shared plate menu and an intimate setting for more than 100 guests.4. Miist Rural is a new enterprise I have recently formed to pursue my passion for cattle farming, on which we will run 400 angus cows producing first cross Wagyu progeny on our farm in the NSW Southern Tablelands. I am also interested in the subject of longevity and am exploring the possibilities for building a business in this fascinating space.

Milsons Point, New South Wales, Au

Guardian Early Learning Group is a leading Australian childcare group that I started with four colleagues in 2004 as a management company, which by 2009 was managing more than 40 centres, including a portfolio of 17 that we had acquired for an institutional client. In 2010, I left Abacus Property Group and took on the CEO role at Guardian, as we brought in our first private equity firm, Wolseley Private Equity, to help fund the initial acquisition of the institutional portfolio and the ongoing growth of the business. By 2013 we had grown to 40 centres and Wolseley sold its majority interest in the business to Navis Capital to facilitate the continued funding of the business' growth. We continued to grow the portfolio during our time with Navis through both new site development and acquisition, reaching 66 centres by late 2015. In 2016 we joined forces with Partners Group and the business grew to more than 100 centres by the time I stepped back from the CEO and founding director role in late 2018.As CEO and founder, I was intimately involved in all aspects of the business, ranging from strategy, financing, leadership, educational philosophy, operational excellence, acquisitions, developing support officer infrastructure, Government relations etc During my time with Guardian, I was appointed to sit on two Federal Government Industry Advisory Boards, and co-founded the Early Learning and Care Council of Australia, an industry association for large providers.

During my time with Abacus, an ASX 200 AREIT, I oversaw the management and expansion of the group's funds management business. This business managed a range of assets across the commercial property, self-storage, mobile homes park and childcare sectors, owned by the clients of some of Australis's pre-eminent wealth management businesses. I also helped managed investor relations and capital markets strategy, leading the raising of more than $300m of equity.

While at Patersons Securities (previously Paterson Ord Minnett), I specialised in raising capital for small cap, listed property trusts and other income stocks. This comprised a mix of initial public offerings, placements, rights issues, underwriting of dividend reinvestment plans etc.

During this period with BBY I transitioned from lawyer/management consultant to investment banker, learning about the markets, trading, investment banking, persuasion skills etc. I enjoyed raising capital for a range of companies including a South Australia uranium mine, working on the IPO of Abacus Property Group and completing an on-market takeover of a recruitment company.

3PP was a high growth start-up that was into its third year of operations when I joined as General Manager. Its business provided third party logistics support to leading Australia fashion retailers through advanced pick and pack technology. While the business had a pre-eminent client list, it mis-priced the delivery of its services and quickly hit financial difficulties, which ultimately lead to it being wound up. I spent most of my time overseeing its operations, assessing its true financial position, working on solutions to improve profitability and potential sale options, but ultimately they failed and I then worked with the administrators to close five sights and lay-off more than 300 staff.

After graduating form law school, I joined Corrs' industrial relations practice, where I worked with Ian Macphee and John Denton developing workplace reform and enterprise bargaining strategies for clients across a range of sectors, including retail, health care, tourism, warehousing etc. Our approach was focused on mutual gains bargaining with management and union representatives and proved highly successful. In 1996 I was awarded a Fulbright Scholarship to spend 4 months in the USA studying high performance work organisations in unionised settings. I spent three months visiting a range of leading companies including Saturn Motor Company, Nabisco, various steel companies, Levi Strauss etc, and then concluded with a month at MIT in Massachusetts. I combined this with an 8 month secondment with Tom Schneider's Restructuring Associates Inc, a Washington DC based consulting firm that specialised in socio-technical redesign in unionised settings. I facilitated a number of joint union-management design teams through a number of redesign processes, spending most of my time at a couple of Unilever manufacturing plants.Upon my return to Australia in 1997, I worked with Chris Ralph in establishing Corrs Schneider, a joint venture consulting business that sought to bring the methodologies of Restructuring Associates to Australia. I worked on a range of client projects aimed at creating high engagement, high performance work systems. In 1999 I made partner with Corrs, but after a year or so, I realised that I wanted to pursue more entrepreneurial endeavours in the future, and decided to leave to commence this exciting new journey.