The model that turns a guess into a negotiable offer

What was broken

A large renewable-energy asset needed feasibility, valuation, and risk assessment before acquisition.

What we did

We built a DCF model and analysed the PPA, statutory approvals, land risks, and downside scenarios.

The result turned an uncertain opportunity into a decision-grade view the buyer could negotiate on.

Where it landed

The result turned an uncertain opportunity into a decision-grade view the buyer could negotiate on.

What an Australian asset purchase actually asks of your numbers

Buying a business or a large asset in Australia — a plant, a portfolio, a going concern — runs through a small set of statutory checkpoints that do not care how confident the offer letter sounds. If the buyer is foreign, investments above the relevant monetary screening thresholds need approval before completion; the thresholds are indexed on 1 January each year, except a static $15 million cumulative threshold that applies to agricultural land, and a separate $50 million threshold that applies only to Thai investors in agricultural land. The screening test is asked in dollars, not adjectives, so the valuation work has to produce a number the application can stand behind.

Separately from foreign investment screening, transfer duty is charged by the state where the asset sits, and most states now tax it on land and on landholder interests — acquiring a significant stake in a company or trust that holds land above the state threshold — rather than on general business assets like plant or goodwill. Whether the target entity trips that landholder threshold is a state-by-state question a national buyer needs answered before signing, not after.

The valuation has to survive a negotiation, not just a board pack

A DCF built for internal comfort and a DCF built to negotiate a purchase price are different documents. The negotiable version prices the contract that produces the cash flow — for a generation asset that is the power purchase agreement: its term, its price escalation, curtailment risk, and what happens at expiry — against a base case, an upside and a genuine downside. A single-point valuation invites a single counter-offer; a scenario range gives the buyer room to move without re-running the model mid-negotiation.

The statutory approvals sitting under the asset are priced the same way, not treated as a checklist. A generation licence, a connection agreement, a planning consent — each carries a probability of renewal, a cost of variation, and a date. Land risk gets the same treatment: title, easements and any registered encumbrance are read as inputs to the model, not as a separate legal memo nobody reconciles against the numbers.

Who the feasibility file is actually for

The model is not the last document in the deal — it is the first thing three different parties ask to see. A lender wants the downside case before it prices debt. An equity co-investor wants the same DCF the buyer used, not a summary of it. And once the deal closes, the entity holding the asset still has ASIC obligations running on a clock — the annual review, the updated registers — that a feasibility exercise conveniently ignores if nobody assigns it to a date.

CapEasy builds the model, reconciles the assumptions to the source contracts, and keeps the workpapers audit-ready — prepared for your registered BAS or tax agent to lodge with the ATO, and for your solicitor and licensed valuer to sign off on the legal structure and any filing with ASIC.