Bolstering critical food infrastructure in Australia

Macquarie Capital acted as sole financial adviser to Aware Super in relation to its divestment and refinancing of ProTen.

Macquarie Capital leveraged its unique understanding of private capital and core plus infrastructure, combined with its sector specialists across industrials, debt capital markets, private capital markets, financial sponsors, infrastructure and real estate, to develop a tailored sale approach and financing structure for ProTen.

As Australia’s first large‑scale project financing of an agricultural business, the transaction required a comprehensive bottom‑up analysis of ProTen’s operations and industry dynamics to appropriately benchmark its risk profile against traditional and core plus infrastructure assets.

This work was critical to position ProTen as a core-plus infrastructure asset. The debt structure was fully portable into the sale process to enable bidders to value the company with the new debt structure, ensuring competitive tension and pushing bidding parties to fully price an efficient capital structure.

Macquarie also undertook pre‑marketing and bidder education to build conviction in the structure and ensure bidders fully priced its benefits. This groundwork was instrumental in creating competitive tension throughout the process.