By Nick Crawley, Managing Director, Corality Financial Group

In early July Corality and Navigator Project Finance (Navigator) announced a consolidation and formed the Corality Financial Group. Now in the second quarter, I am compelled to share with you how astonishingly well the new powerhouse is performing and the amazing view from the driving seat.

After running Navigator and Corality successfully as separate companies since 2005 and 2009 respectively, Rickard Wärnelid and I agreed to act on the opportunity to develop a broader service offering by combining Navigator’s project finance services with Corality’s consulting expertise. The merger leverages the strength of both companies in order to increase market share through a greater service offering and a larger consulting team. We are now proud to be offering the industry’s most complete set of analytical consulting and training services in combination with commercial and financial advisory.

Handpicked team of 30 consultants in London, Singapore and Sydney

Proof in hand, the merger as been a success – with the end of the half financial year in sight we have increased our client base extensively through some key projects with recognised leaders in their respective fields, for example for Woodside, BayernLB, O2, Standard Chartered and African Minerals. We have also hired 6 new team members across our offices in London, Singapore and Sydney. We now have a powerful team of 30 consultants, handpicked to deliver projects across a broad number of industry sectors including investments, corporate finance, project finance / PPP, private equity, risk, strategy, operations, commercial and accounting. In addition to this we also offer a comprehensive suite of training courses including financial modelling, Excel/VBA, project finance, corporate finance, investment banking and industry specific courses.

Our winning formula

I am often asked how we can attract a global client base in competition with the large accounting firms, other consulting firms and investment banks and I am grateful for the support we receive from our clients and the positive feedback we get around the things I believe our success is built upon.

• Our strong team of specialists
• Our obsession with consulting excellence
• Our global offices and network

Team of specialists – our competitive edge

The Corality team consists of analytical consultants with backgrounds in banking, strategy, accounting, actuarial, mathematics, engineering, IT and physics. We now have team members from England, Sweden, Scotland, Cyprus, Malaysia, Australia, Serbia, China, South Korea, Indonesia, New Zealand, South Africa, Switzerland and Ukraine. We use this diversity to drive our competitive edge – our diverse backgrounds ensure we can put together an expert team with very short notice, regardless of industry sector and geographical location.

Consulting excellence – quality delivery and thought leadership

Our clients tell us that they like working with us because of our expertise, attention to detail and our dedication to ‘getting the job done’. There is nothing more important to us that this – it flows through in everything we do, both for our clients and for each other. In building a team with this flair we have worked hard to recruit, retain and enable the right mix of people with the right motivation and insight into what makes consulting excellence.

All of the above contribute in different ways to our twice award winning growth. Navigator was nominated the BRW FAST 100 award in 2010 and Corality is a BRW 2011 Fast Starter.

24 hour service through global offices – work with us in London, Singapore and Sydney

With offices in London, Singapore and Sydney we are able to offer our clients local expertise as well as 24 hour service. We use the time difference between our offices to our clients’ advantage. By working on projects across different time zones we can shorten project lead times and turn projects around faster.

Looking forward to working with you in your region – grow with Corality in 2012

We are now looking forward to a busy 2012. We have many interesting projects in the pipe and we have big plans for the future! In 2012 we will continue to increase our market share in the European and Asian markets and to cover the increase in demand we see from our clients, we are recruiting for several positions across our offices in London and Sydney.

Dakar Airport – Senegal – Airport infrastructure

Senegal’s new airport is planned to take 30 months to build and have an initial capacity of 3 million passengers a year – almost double the 1.7 million annual traffic handled by the existing airport.
Corality’s role: Financial model audit for the African Islamic Development Bank AIDB.

Finders Resources – Indonesia – Mining project finance (Wetar)

Finders Resources is an Indonesia-focused operator with its two key projects being the Wetar Copper Project (~95% interest and earning) and the Ojolali Gold-Silver Project (72% interest with option to increase to 100%).
Corality’s role: Mandated financial advisor for the project financing of Wetar.

Kagara – Australia – Mining

Kagara Ltd is a leading Australian mining company with growing copper, zinc-lead and nickel operations in North Queensland and Western Australia and a strong project development and exploration pipeline.
Corality’s role: financial modelling, budget and planning models, transaction support.

mybikeRego – Australia – Retail/wholesale

mybikeREGO was set up initially to provide cyclists with a way of ensuring they could be identified swiftly should they be involved in an accident. Their aim now is to also reduce bike crime and increase the probability of having recovered bikes returned to their rightful owners.
Corality’s role: Strategic decision and valuation modelling.

O2 Wind – Sweden – Renewable energy

O2’s business concept is to develop, construct, market and manage wind power plants, while maintaining focus on a healthy total yield and stringent environmental requirements. O2 has built one fifth of all wind power turbines in Sweden.
Corality’s role: Project finance transaction support and development of financial models.

Salamander Energy– Singapore – Energy project finance

Salamander Energy is an Asia-focused independent exploration and production company with a number of licences spread throughout Indonesia, Thailand, Vietnam and Lao PDR.
Corality’s role: Financial model audit for the project finance banks.

Victorian Comprehensive Cancer Centre Project– Australia – PPP Social infrastructure

On 7 May 2009, both the Victorian and Australian Governments announced funding for the construction of a $1 billion comprehensive cancer centre in Parkville, Melbourne. Construction of the new facility will begin in 2011 and be completed by the end of 2015.
Corality’s role: Financial model audit for the bid consortium.

We are always looking for interesting projects and we welcome discussions around how we can assist you in improving your financial analysis, financial modelling, project financing, forecasting models and investment analysis – please get in touch if you think we can help.

Nick Crawley
Managing Director, Corality Financial Group