Industrial business valuations in Geelong

What did losing Ford and Alcoa teach Geelong suppliers?

That an anchor customer can leave on a timetable the supplier does not control. Alcoa announced in February 2014 that it would close its 50-year-old Point Henry smelter, which employed about 500 people; production ended that August. Ford's Geelong engine plant, which opened in 1925 and built the company's locally made six-cylinder and V8 engines to the end, stopped when Ford ended Australian manufacturing on 7 October 2016.

In June 2026 the City of Greater Geelong reported that manufacturing added 1,235 jobs in the 12 months to June 2025, a 12.1% increase, taking manufacturing employment back to levels last seen before the Alcoa and Ford closures. For a valuer, the lesson is that the same concentration risk now sits with a new set of large customers.

Who are Geelong's anchor customers now?

Each of the three large operators creates a different kind of revenue for its suppliers.

Valuing a supplier to the Avalon armoured vehicle programs

Hanwha Defence Australia opened its $170 million Armoured Vehicle Centre of Excellence at the Avalon Airport precinct on 23 August 2024. The first stage builds Huntsman vehicles. When it signed the Redback contract in December 2023, Hanwha said all 129 vehicles would be made in Australia at the Geelong facility, with deliveries starting in 2027 and the fleet delivered in full by 2028.

A production contract with a known delivery schedule is unusually visible revenue, and also revenue with a visible end. For a machining, fabrication, wiring or coatings business on the program, we map how its work ramps up and tails off against that schedule, and ask what replaces it: sustainment, export orders, a follow-on program, or nothing yet. Where earnings rise and fall over a few years, a discounted cash flow often describes the business better than capitalising one year. We also check whether jigs, fixtures and test equipment bought for the program have any use after it. The defence manufacturing guide covers security, quality and export control requirements.

When the refinery has a bad year, does the contractor have a good one?

Sometimes. In April 2026 a fire hit the petrol production area of Viva Energy's Geelong refinery. Viva said output would be reduced for a time while it relied on imports to cover the shortfall. Repair work after an incident like that can fill a maintenance contractor's order book for months.

That work is real income, but it is not maintainable income. We separate incident and repair revenue from routine maintenance and planned shutdowns, value the one-off portion once, and capitalise only the base the business earns in an ordinary year. The same applies in reverse: a year in which a planned turnaround was deferred can understate the base.

Bulk cargo, heavy industry land and the cost of moving

GeelongPort operates 15 berths over 90 hectares across Corio Quay and Lascelles Wharf. Its cargo is bulk rather than containers: crude oil, petroleum, woodchips, fertiliser, cement clinker and project cargo, with Viva Energy, Midway, Incitec Pivot, Riordan Grain and Boral named as major customers. A haulage, stevedoring or bulk handling business is valued on tonnage by customer and season over several years, because one big harvest or project shipment can flatter a year. Our transport and logistics guide covers fleet and contract questions.

Land is the other constraint. In May 2025 the City of Greater Geelong told the state that businesses had difficulty finding appropriate industrial land, and described the Geelong Ring Road Employment Precinct at Corio and Lara, 500 hectares zoned for heavy industry, as one of only a few areas in Victoria with large-lot Industrial 2 land. A heavy industrial operation with buffers, approvals and a site that suits it holds something hard to replicate. We read the lease for term, options and make-good, and normalise any related-party rent to market.

Servicing Geelong and Victoria

Corio, Waurn Ponds, the Bellarine, the Surf Coast or further out in western Victoria: the work runs on documents and calls with a valuer rather than meetings at a Geelong office, so where the business sits changes nothing about the process or the fee. If the plant or operation needs to be seen, we say so when scoping and agree any visit and its cost first. We confirm the fee in writing before we start. No hourly billing. See pricing and our Melbourne page.