APM closed at $1.63 per share on Tuesday and hit a low of 69¢ in late January. The share price slide since the IPO in late 2021 has put a dent in the personal wealth of company founder and major shareholder Megan Wynne. Ms Wynne, who trained as an occupational therapist, owns more than 34 per cent of APM. She established the business in 1994.
She is executive chairman of the company which in October hired former West Australian premier Mark McGowan as an adviser.
The APM shares held by Ms Wynne, who was ranked No. 176 on the Financial Review Rich List in 2021, were briefly worth more than $1 billion after the company went public in 2021. Her wealth was estimated at $1.03 billion on the 2023 list.
Private equity group Madison Dearborn Capital Partners is still sitting on a stake of just over 30 per cent in APM and under the CVC proposal was to have rolled about 75 per cent of that holding into an unlisted vehicle. Madison Dearborn bought its large holding from Quadrant Private Equity in 2018.
The federal government is part-way through an overhaul of national employment services and is also trying to tackle serious cost blowouts in the NDIS.
Federal NDIS and Government Services Minister Bill Shorten has pledged to reduce waste and fraud in the broader NDIS system, where there are 646,000 NDIS participants. Mr Shorten has signalled that a revamp will take five years as he attempts to return it to its original purpose of looking after the permanently and significantly disabled.
Legislation reflecting the recommendations of last year’s review into the troubled scheme is designed to reduce the growth rate of the scheme to 8 per cent by 2026.
APM chief executive Michael Anghie last week said APM had won several new contracts in North America to provide jobs training for young people, which would deliver extra revenue of $140 million in 2024-25.
APM at its half-year results in February signalled it expected “modest growth” from the NDIS in the June-half. The company said it would benefit from the “demographic megatrends” of servicing ageing populations and a demand from communities for more social inclusion for those with disabilities.