#46 - Ben Harrison | Backing Growth Beyond Lending: How Altor & Prime Combine Debt, Equity & Strategy to Invest in Mid-Market Businesses

In today’s ROCast, Murdoch is joined by Ben Harrison, Co-Founder and Chief Investment Officer of Altor Capital, which as of February 2024 has been acquired by Prime Financial Group. Ben’s career began in engineering and project management on major infrastructure projects across Australia and Southeast Asia, before moving into finance with Wilsons — soon to be part of Canaccord — where he worked in equity research, ECM, and M&A. Nearly a decade ago, he co-founded Altor, building it into a specialist alternative asset manager with a focus on private credit and growth equity. What I find most interesting about Altor is that they’re not just lending to businesses. They want to get in alongside them, with both debt and equity, and work with founders to succeed. Their loans are senior secured, giving investors downside protection, but Altor often takes an equity stake too — putting them on the same side of the table as management and giving their investors a share in the potential upside. Their borrowers are typically operating companies with $20–100 million in revenue and $2–10 million in EBITDA, looking for capital to expand, make acquisitions, or invest in growth. Altor isn’t a property lender — they don’t fund land banking or development — but when a business owns property, or other hard assets, those assets are taken into account as part of the security package. In that sense, they use the full balance sheet to structure deals, but always through the lens of backing operating businesses. As of the time of recording, Altor’s flagship Private Credit Fund had delivered just under 12% per annum net of fees over its seven-year track record, paying quarterly distributions with a 10% cash yield target. That consistency comes from disciplined structuring, active involvement, and the additional upside created by equity positions. We also talk about Altor’s decision to join Prime Financial Group. The acquisition gave Altor the scale and infrastructure to accelerate growth, while opening up Prime’s sports and entertainment advisory business. Together, they’ve already completed several high-profile deals — most notably, the acquisition of the Tasmania Jack Jumpers NBL team — showing how sports franchises can be treated as platform assets with strong brands, loyal fans, and multiple streams of revenue. So, before we get into the conversation, please remember this ROCast is made for entertainment purposes only. I encourage you to listen to the disclaimer at the end of this ROCast and to keep your feedback coming. You can reach me at [email protected] that being said, I hope you enjoy this conversation as much as I did.So sit back, relax, and enjoy.