Murchison boss plans new venture fund

Murchison Metals managing director Greg Martin, who is in the throes of winding up the once-troubled company after liquidating its guidelines of process evaluation for ball mill grindingassets and amassing a cash pile of about $230 million, has begun planning a new venture to capture underpriced infrastructure and resources assets.

Mr Martin and a former colleague from Challenger Infrastructure Fund, Steve Bickerton, are setting up their own fund and are believed to have secured $300 million in seed capital commitments.

Their ambitions were boosted yesterday with news that JPMorgan's highly-regarded head of utilities and infrastructure, Alan Young, had quit the investment bank to join the Martin-Bickerton start-up.

Little is known about the new fund's set-up.

But it is understood that Mr Martin, who ran Sydney-based energy giant AGL for five years and remains on the board of Santos as a non-executive director, sees opportunities in a market where company share prices and asset values are depressed and funding options limited.

Mr Martin has won kudos for salvaging value for Murchison shareholders by striking a deal to sell its stakes in the Oakajee port and rail and Jack Hills mine developments to partner Mitsubishi for $325 million earlier this year. Mr Martin took over the managing director's role at Murchison a year ago when the Perth company was teetering on the brink of collapse because of a pending cash shortage and an inability to fund its share of the $10 billion cost of developing OPR and Jack Hills. The winding-up of Murchison and return of cash to shareholders is expected to be completed early next year.

JPMorgan has also lost its head of natural resources, David Hine.