How Macrano owns and operates businesses.
Macrano is a privately held group based in Adelaide and Brisbane. It acquires established Australian operating businesses with strong management teams and durable customer relationships, and holds them under one consistent model: the business keeps running as it does today, and Macrano adds governance, capital and group services above it.
Sectors
Macrano focuses on sectors where its principals have direct operating, financing and transaction experience, and where demand is underpinned by long-term public and private investment.
Electrical contracting
Commercial, industrial and multi-residential electrical contractors with in-house design, estimating and project management.
Infrastructure services
Electrical and technical services for transport, health, education and other public infrastructure.
Distributed energy
Commercial solar, battery storage and related energy infrastructure, an area in which the principals have delivered hundreds of projects.
Business as usual by design.
Each company keeps its brand, its management, its customers and its suppliers. The only change on day one is the shareholder. Macrano does not merge businesses, combine workforces or impose new systems at completion. This avoids the things that commonly cause acquisitions to fail: forced integration, new systems on day one, and departing management.
Companies in the group do not tender against each other. Each focuses on the work it does best, and referrals between companies are welcome but never assumed.
Centralised finance and administration — chart of accounts, reporting, month-end process and shared administration — are phased in gradually, so that no company changes systems on day one.
The plan, in four parts
The same plan applies to every business Macrano owns, in this order.
Preserve and strengthen each business
Each company continues under its existing brand, management and delivery model. Founders are retained on structured transitions and key managers are aligned with the success of the business. Macrano adds capability and capital where it strengthens the business, and avoids disruption to delivery.
Overlay institutional governance
A professional board with a formal charter and reporting framework, monthly board packs covering financial performance, project status, pipeline, safety, people and risk, and a group risk register.
Build centralised group services
A single finance, reporting, compliance and procurement function, phased in gradually, with shared systems that give the group a consistent view of customers, pipeline and project profitability.
Let each business pursue its own segment
Companies focus on the opportunity in their own segment rather than competing for the same work. Customer introductions between businesses are welcome but never assumed.
Governance
Macrano appoints the board of each operating company and runs the same governance cycle across the group.
Chris Wade chairs the group and each operating company board. Jonathan Ruddick sits on each board as executive director. The head of each business reports to its board.
A formal board charter and terms of reference, with an investment committee for capital-allocation decisions.
Each company reports monthly to its board on financial performance, project status, pipeline, safety, people and risk. Formal board meetings are held quarterly, with strategy workshops twice a year.
A group risk register with project-oversight and escalation protocols. Safety is a standing item in every monthly board pack, and each company keeps its own safety, quality and compliance systems.
Annual budgets and any material capital expenditure require board approval. Investment decisions are made through a formal investment case.
Banking authorities and payment delegations are set by the board. Cash and treasury are controlled at group level by the Group CFO.
Incoming managing directors complete the Australian Institute of Company Directors' Company Directors Course as part of their appointment.
Certainty for every party.
Macrano runs conservative capital structures and keeps its commitments. Its transactions are built on simple structures: purchase prices agreed and fixed up front, terms written in plain English, clear priority between financiers and vendors, and payment mechanics that protect the operating business first.
Vendors deal with one counterparty, on terms that are simple to read and simple to enforce.
Aligned management
Each business is established, profitable and already well run by the people who will keep running it. Macrano keeps those people in place, aligns them through salary, bonus and, where agreed, equity, and adds group-level oversight above them. Founders are supported through structured transitions on terms agreed with them.
Growth as the strategy
Macrano buys businesses to grow them. Each company keeps its own market and its own customers — but with the strength of the group behind it, each can tender for and deliver work beyond its reach alone. Growth creates opportunity for the people in every business: more scope, more responsibility and more room to further a career.
Principles
Four commitments that hold across every acquisition and every board.
Integrity and disciplined evaluation
We do the work before we make an offer, so the offer holds.
Respect for existing management
The people who built the business keep running it. We support them; we do not second-guess them.
Structured governance and accountability
Clear boards, clear delegations, clear reporting. Everyone knows who decides what.
Long-term value creation
Value comes from selecting well-priced work and delivering it well, not from chasing volume.