From skydiving in Wollongong to the adventure tourism world

The Wollongong business, which listed on the Australian Securities Exchange (ASX) in early 2015, made its first foray into the international adventure tourism market by acquiring lucrative New Zealand skydiving company NZone, which has two drop zones, for $15.5 million last year.

Now it has made a conditional offer on another leading jump operation known as Skydive Wanaka.

Skydive the Beach was established in 1999 by chief executive Anthony Boucaut who has always wanted to get into the New Zealand adventure tourism market. And Queenstown is regarded by many as the adventure capital of the world. Chief financial officer Anthony Ritter said Mr Boucaut was looking at a number of overseas options in the adventure tourism space, not just skydiving.

Skydive Australia presently operates five drop zones in NSW, three in Victoria, three in WA and four in QLD. With two already in New Zealand and one more likely in just over a week it will soon have 18.

“We are currently the biggest tandem skydiving operator in the world,” Mr Ritter said.

“And our ultimate aim is to become the largest adventure tourism company in the world. New Zealand is the current focus given we have just signed a conditional offer. But we are looking at any opportunity that comes our way.”

In 2014 the business completed over 60,000 tandem skydives with around 20,000 of those done in Wollongong.

Skydives this financial year are forecast to reach 130,000 and annual turnover is expected to reach $54 million turnover.

Growth in Wollongong has also been solid after the acquisition of a bigger plane has allowed more skydives with each flight.

The $10.4 million acquisition is expected to go through on July 1.

Which means Skydive Wanaka will be one of three drop zones on the South Island for the Wollongong based company.

It comes as the number of international travelers passing through the Queenstown airport increased 20 per cent during the last year.

“Tourism is booming over there. We are glad to be part of it,” Mr Ritter said.

The Wanaka drop zone is one hour’s drive and over a mountain range from NZone operations in Queenstown. NZone did 23,000 tandem skydives last year and Wanaka grew 24 per cent to 14,511 during the last financial year. It is forecast to do 17,000 this year. Weather conditions are often different meaning if one site cannot operate the other might.

Skydive is spending close to another $3.5 million acquiring an additional high capacity aircraft that can take 10 passengers at a time and three luxury coaches to transport Queenstown tandem jumpers to Wanaka so that jumps can be completed and not be cancelled on poor weather days.

To fund the acquisition of Skydive Wanaka and the new aircraft and buses Skydive the Beach undertook an institutional placement to existing institutional investors to raise $15 million. The response was good and it was was oversubscribed.

“We went on a trading hold at the close of business last Wednesday...and trading reopened yesterday after the announcement was made to the ASX on Monday,” Mr Ritter said.

Mr Boucaut said the Skydive Wanaka acquisition would strengthen Skydive’s position in the New Zealand market with another expanding and complementary skydiving business that had even stronger growth potential.

“It adds more international assets as part of our goal to become the leading global adventure tourism company. We will continue to pursue growth opportunities in adventure tourism,” he said.

Mr Ritter said there were many strategic advantages, cost savings and synergies involved in operating the three drop zones in the Queenstown area.

Since Skydive Wanaka was established in 1995 more than 100,000 tandem jumps were completed. It has 45 employees.