Craig Winkler’s Xero shares now worth $745m as stock breaks $40 barrier

January 26, 2014 Leave a comment

Caitlin Fitzsimmons Online editor

Craig Winkler’s Xero shares now worth $745m as stock breaks $40 barrier

Published 16 January 2014 12:33, Updated 16 January 2014 12:35

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Craig Winkler returned to the BRW Rich 200 in 2013 thanks to his Xero investment. James Davies

The extraordinary rise of shares in accounting software start-up Xero has already made hundreds of millions of dollars for early investor Craig Winkler and it shows no signs of slowing down.

The New Zealand-based company opened on the Australian Securities Exchange at $40.30 on Thursday morning, after rising nearly 8 per cent the previous day.

This is an 18 per cent rise since 6 November last year when it closed at $34.20. The stock listed on the ASX just a year before, on 8 November 2012, at an opening price of $4.50. It was already listed on the New Zealand Stock Exchange and maintains a dual listing.

The share price gives it a market capitalisation greater than many other businesses, including SEEK and Qantas, and is despite the fact that the company is not yet profitable.

Xero reported a net loss of $16 million for the six months ended 30 September but revenue is growing strongly and is now more than $30 million. The company, described by Credit Suisse as the “Apple of accounting”, offers a cloud-based accounting solution to the small business market and its customer base is global.

Winkler paid $15 million for his initial stake in Xero in 2009 after selling out of rival accounting software company MYOB, which he founded.

He sold some shares early on but remains the second largest shareholder in Xero behind the Kiwi chief executive Rod Drury.

Winkler returned to the BRWRich 200 in 2013 in 178th place, with a fortune estimated at $275 million, $200 million of that from the value of Xero shares.

Based on the Thursday opening price of $40.30, his stake is now worth a staggering $745 million.

On Wednesday Xero appointed Victoria Crone, who previously worked at Telecom New Zealand and Chorus, as managing director in New Zealand, effective April.

The statement to the ASX also revealed the company had recruited 90 staff in the past three months and now had headcount over 600 but is still looking to hire more software developers.

Filed under TMT Trends

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Kee Koon Boon (“KB”) is the co-founder and director of HERO Investment Management which provides specialized fund management and investment advisory services to the ARCHEA Asia HERO Innovators Fund (www.heroinnovator.com), the only Asian SMID-cap tech-focused fund in the industry. KB is an internationally featured investor rooted in the principles of value investing for over a decade as a fund manager and analyst in the Asian capital markets who started his career at a boutique hedge fund in Singapore where he was with the firm since 2002 and was also part of the core investment committee in significantly outperforming the index in the 10-year-plus-old flagship Asian fund. He was also the portfolio manager for Asia-Pacific equities at Korea’s largest mutual fund company. Prior to setting up the H.E.R.O. Innovators Fund, KB was the Chief Investment Officer & CEO of a Singapore Registered Fund Management Company (RFMC) where he is responsible for listed Asian equity investments. KB had taught accounting at the Singapore Management University (SMU) as a faculty member and also pioneered the 15-week course on Accounting Fraud in Asia as an official module at SMU. KB remains grateful and honored to be invited by Singapore’s financial regulator Monetary Authority of Singapore (MAS) to present to their top management team about implementing a world’s first fact-based forward-looking fraud detection framework to bring about benefits for the capital markets in Singapore and for the public and investment community. KB also served the community in sharing his insights in writing articles about value investing and corporate governance in the media that include Business Times, Straits Times, Jakarta Post, Manual of Ideas, Investopedia, TedXWallStreet. He had also presented in top investment, banking and finance conferences in America, Italy, Sydney, Cape Town, HK, China. He has trained CEOs, entrepreneurs, CFOs, management executives in business strategy & business model innovation in Singapore, HK and China.

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