The risk is high, but Urbnsurf – now backed by Nomura and a special situations lender – is trying to prove wave parks can be serious business.
Already a subscriber?Damon Tudor has just opened Sydney’s first surf park, and is morphing the novel wave pool into a bankable asset class for lenders looking for peculiar investments.
Since opening in Melbourne four years ago, the company has secured almost $60 million in loans from non-bank lenders and investment banks such as Japan’s Nomura. With two locations up and running, Tudor has set sights on further expansion, potential M&A, and a likely payday for investors. Keyview managing partner Alex Hone discovered Urbnsurf when it was fundraising in 2017. Shortly after first meeting with the company, Mr Hone went to Snowdonia in Wales where a popular surf park existed in freezing cold conditions.“The park was 100 per cent occupied, and the wave was authentic in its power and shape,” he said of the pool in Wales, adding that he met a father whose children had grown enamoured by surfing in just six months.
Keyview lent another PIK-structured $9.4 million, 18-month debt facility to Urbnsurf to weather the pandemic lockdowns in 2020. As the world, and Urbnsurf’s Melbourne location, reopened, the company needed more money to get its operations in Sydney off the ground. The company approached overseas hedge funds, large family offices and special situations lenders such as Keyview to cut a bigger cheque.
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