The raise comes after Blue Sky, which listed on the AX in January 2013, raised an additional $9 million in August 2013 through a placement and subsequent Share Purchase Plan (SPP).
“Once we did that and it was successful, it allowed us to start building our balance sheet,” Blue Sky managing director Mark Sowerby told InvestorDaily.
“At some point you need to get scale, you really need to grow, and there are definitely scale benefits in funds management,” Mr Sowerby said.
“We just needed to get bigger and so we did this last raise of $25.6 million,” he said.
Blue Sky will use the funds to provide additional capital for ongoing co-investment in its own managed funds.
In addition to demonstrating balance sheet scale, the capital raising will enhance conversion of potential institutional mandates, Mr Sowerby said.
“We have had some success attracting some institutional capital in the last 12 months,” he said.
“To build on that you need to be a bigger business.
“Structurally you’ve just got to get your business ticking all the boxes and I think the raise helps to do that, because it gives us additional strength to invest into some of our ideas alongside the institutions.”
Blue Sky is an alternative asset manager with $400 million in assets under management (AUM) across private equity, private real estate, real assets and hedge funds.
The company aims to grow its AUM to greater than $500 million by the end of June 2014 and to $2 billion by 2017.
