Former Citi banker Chris Knoblanche named Hipages chairman

Citigroup’s former managing director of corporate and investment banking for Australia and New Zealand, Chris Knoblanche, has joined online tradie jobs platform Hipages as chairman.

Speculation of the company making a run at the Australian Stock Exchange boards has also been heating up.

According to filings with the Australian Securities and Investments Commission, Mr Knoblanche was appointed on March 16. He is also chairman of ASX-listed insurance comparison group iSelect, is on the boards of Latitude Financial and the Environment Protection Authority NSW, and served on the board of Greencross before its sale to TPG Capital.

The News Corp-backed business has hired investment bank Goldman Sachs and law firm Ashurst to work on the initial public offering prospectus for a potential listing. Hipages, which has fared well during the COVID-19 pandemic, is expected to attract keen interest.

News Corp has a 30 per cent stake in Hipages, and Ashok Jacob’s Ellerston Capital and Australian venture capital firm Right Click Capital are major investors. There are many smaller investors as well.

Sources told The Australian Financial Review Hipages had sought approval from shareholders for a "liquidity event" last month, and several smaller private investment firms were expected to sell out as part of their investment horizon. They said the shareholders’ agreement required approval and could be signed this week.

News Corp, which holds a majority stake in Australia's largest digital property classifieds business, REA Group, is expected to remain with Hipages following the mooted listing.

Shareholders have been told of Hipages’ strong trading during the COVID-19 crisis as people who could not travel fixed up their homes and renovated instead. They have also been briefed on the platform's 43 per cent year-on-year growth in total job numbers in the final quarter of 2019-20, the 23 per cent year-on-year growth for the last financial year, the approximately $50 million in revenue during the year, and positive earnings before interest, tax, depreciation and amortisation.

Importantly, Hipages bases its revenue on subscriptions from its customers – the tradies – rather than a clip-the-ticket model. It previously shifted away from lead-generation charges. Shareholders have also been briefed that the Hipages app has now become the largest source of incoming jobs, followed by search engine optimisation. Search engine marketing is a distant third.

The tradie platform recently signed a deal with the NSW Department of Education to allow tradies to bid for maintenance jobs at the more than 2200 public schools around the state.

While a run at the ASX boards will always be subject to market conditions, Mr Knoblanche's appointment as an independent chairman marks the clearest sign yet that Hipages will go public.

The board includes names such as Right Click Capital founder Ari Klinger, News Corp Australia managing director of commercial partnerships Emma Fawcett, former News Corp Australia chief financial officer Stacey Brown, Ellerston investment director David Leslie and Hipages founders Robert Sharon-Zipser and David Vitek.