ANGLE Auto Finance, announced nearly a year ago and fully operational for six months, is forging ahead with the transition from Westpac-owned St George Bank, a long-time funder of dealer retail paper and floorplan cover, to an independent loan partner for Australian car dealers backed by international private equity capital. In an exclusive interview with GoAutoNews Premium, outgoing CEO Gary Thursby and chairman Bernie Campbell have revealed the progress they have made after six months in transitioning from the St George operations plus another six months of building up the Angle Auto busine ..read more

AN Australian digital direct-to-consumer car sales model has received a second injection of funds and is on a mission to expand EV ownership through zero-interest finance and access to new and used vehicles. Vyro, which recently received $1 million capital led by Antler Australia and Ellerston Capital, opened with a soft launch late last year and now says it has 1000 on its waiting list and has sold “numerous” cars. The attraction for buyers is attractively priced EVs that can come with zero-percent interest finance through fintech lender Plenti, which is backed by Westpac after the bank prov ..read more

INCHCAPE Australia has added its Peugeot and Citroën brands to its arrangement with financial services company Allied Credit which specialises in providing the back end infrastructure for branded white label finance offerings for OEMs. The move to include Peugeot and Citroen with Subaru was flagged in July last year when Inchcape Australia announced Subaru Financial Services as the first brand under the newly-created joint venture with Allied Credit. The arrangement leverages the experience and expertise of Allied Credit which last year purchased the dealer floorplan funding business of Macqu ..read more

ALLIED Credit is gearing up for major growth in the Australian auto finance market following a recent investment by Bain Capital. The investment, the amount of which was not stated, was made through Bain Capital’s $US49 billion Bain Capital Credit arm. It secures a 20 per cent slice of Allied Credit and a place at the boardroom table. The investment follows the purchase of the floorplan loan book operated by Macquarie’s Banking and Financial Services Group, which is in the process of winding down its exposure to the auto dealer finance business. Allied Credit agreed to purchase the Macquarie ..read more

ALLIED Credit has entered into an agreement with Macquarie’s banking and financial services group to acquire the millionaires factory’s auto dealer finance business.  The arrangement almost exactly mirrors that done recently by Angle Finance which has taken over the dealer finance business from Westpac’s St George car loans operations.  Under the arrangement, Allied Credit has purchased the floorplan finance operations of Macquarie as well as the backend IT systems that manage the lending for dealer stock. Under the deal, and just like the hybrid St George deal with Angle Finance, M ..read more

AUSTRALIAN dealers and brokers are winners as automotive finance business Autopay has received a boost in its lending ability thanks to an upgrade of its funding facility by its parent company, listed finance group MoneyMe. MoneyMe recently restructured its facility which now allows it to support increased customer originations growth with much of that expected through the Autopay business. In a statement to the Australian Securities Exchange (ASX) on July 20, MoneyMe noted how its Horizon 2020 Trust (HW20) external funding capacity is to increase by $108 million – or 47 per cent – to $338 mi ..read more

DATA tracking of loan funding by Nodifi across a wide range of assets, including motor vehicles, is showing continued growth in financing activity in Q2 2021 compared to Q1 2021. The trend emerges in spite of ongoing COVID-19 lockdowns across the nation. Nodifi provides cloud-based asset finance solutions to brokers and dealerships across Australia. The company reported that asset finance loan drawdowns saw an increase of 9.4 per cent between Q1 and Q2, delivering an average loan amount of $40,710, up from $38,172 in Q1. Motor vehicles made up 85 per cent of all settlements, while caravan/cam ..read more

THE purchase of Westpac’s car finance activity will see ownership of an estimated 20 per cent of the car loan business in Australia change hands in the biggest financier deal since Macquarie Bank bought ESANDA from the ANZ Bank in 2015. However, whereas under the ESANDA deal Macquarie bought the whole dealer floor plan and retail loans business, the purchase of the St George business by Angle Finance is more of a hybrid. Bernie Campbell, the chairman of Angle Finance, which has done the deal with Westpac, told GoAutoNews Premium in an exclusive interview: “It’s more complicated because they’r ..read more

INCHCAPE Australasia has launched its own finance company that will manage financial services for Subaru dealers and for Peugeot and Citroen retailers. In a statement to GoAutoNews Premium the company said: “Inchcape will launch its own dedicated financial services company leveraging the experience of Allied Credit via a true captive joint venture.” Financial services for Subaru have previously operated under a white label arrangement with Macquarie Bank. GoAutoNews Premium understands that agreement was due to expire. Under the current arrangement Subaru Financial Services loans were funded ..read more

THE long-awaited resolution to what the Westpac Group wanted to do with its St George Finance car loans division has been revealed with the sale of the bank’s floor plan assets to the US-owned Cerberus Capital Management via its portfolio company, Angle Finance. Cerberus Capital Management, L.P. is a global leader in alternative investing with $US55 billion in assets under management. It has extensive experience in the financial services sector. Under the deal, Westpac will transfer more than 100 auto dealer and loan introducer agreements covering 1200 dealerships nationally together with app ..read more