COO & CFO: Pescott Group - Forestry, Farms and Recycling Assets and Businesses

COO & CFO Appointment to Overcome Challenging Circumstances

On April 3, 2007, Roger Pescott, a former Minister in the Kennett government, appointed Jason as COO & CFO of the Pescott Group of companies. This group consisted of twenty entities with an investment portfolio that included passive investments and operational businesses in mixed grazing, forestry plantations, and recycling.

Forestry Plantations: The portfolio included Bluegum plantations and native forests in the central west districts of Victoria. Companies involved were Environinvest Ltd with 10,000 hectares of blue gum plantations, STY Holdings, Beenak Pty Ltd, Blackburne Pty Ltd, Brabourne Pty Ltd, and others.

Mixed Grazing Operations: These operations included sheep, cattle, and cropping of canola and wheat in western Victoria, as well as dairy cattle on King Island, Tasmania. Entities involved were Traland Pty Ltd, Trawalla Holdings Pty Ltd, Maridale Pastoral Company, and CMP Pastoral. The jewel in the crown of the portfolio was the famous Australian sheep grazing property "Trawalla."

Recycling: The portfolio included Motorway Tyres in Stawell, Victoria, and Rrecycle Australia Pty in Wyong, NSW.

At the time of Jason's appointment, the Group faced several strategic, operational, and administrative issues. Jason's role was to address these challenges. Administratively, the entities were behind in preparing financial statements and meeting their statutory obligations regarding BAS, income tax, and ASIC compliance. Strategically, the Managed Investment Scheme (MIS) business model in Australia was under significant pressure due to plantation yields not meeting Prospectus (PDS) projections, rising plantation management costs, and MIS investments languishing in the early days of the global financial crisis. Environinvest Ltd was based on this MIS business model. Within 12 months of Jason's appointment, the GFC would be in full swing, essentially destroying the Environinvest business.

Navigating the group through these extremely difficult circumstances required a broad range of Jason's skills. This included budgeting, restructuring, rehabilitating accounting records, M&A work with Environinvest's plantation assets, pursuing M&A opportunities with the two recycling companies, restructuring the farming business, consolidating debt, and cleaning up the myriad of interrelated party loan accounts. These efforts were crucial to mitigate the significant risk to the personal assets of Roger Pescott and his family should any companies in the Group enter formal insolvency arrangements.