Financier Steve Kent from Banjo Loans eyes expansion in Queensland

Banjo Loans’ new man in Queensland has had a storied career that has included stints as a cartoonist and publican for pokies czar Bruce Mathieson.

Veteran finance broker Steve Kent is a man of many talents.

Kent, who has just been appointed Banjo Loans’ business development manager in Queensland, has had a storied career that has included stints as a cartoonist and publican for pokies magnate Bruce Mathieson.

Kent’s new role will see him help expand fast-growing non-bank lender Banjo Loans’ presence in the Sunshine State. Banjo, which is based in Melbourne, specialises in providing loans to SMEs across Australia. Since 2015 it has loaned more than $650 million to thousands of businesses with its two biggest markets Victoria and New South Wales.

Kent, who ran his own finance broking firm in Melbourne for more than a decade, has joined Banjo from the Victorian Mortgage Group where he also worked as a business development manager. Kent has had a colourful career – quite literally – which has included working as a caricaturist for Melbourne nightclub Stylus in the mid-1990s.

Steve Kent has joined Banjo Loans

“I would be up on stage and the punters would come up to have their caricature drawn,” Kent says. “They would be tipsy and struggle to sit still, which made it difficult to get the drawing done sometimes Having said that, I often felt that I could really draw anything, and they wouldn’t notice because they would be a bit distracted by what was happening in the club.”
In the early 2000s, Mr Kent moved into managing pubs in Melbourne for Bruce Mathieson Senior, which included the Preston Arms. He left that business so he could strike a better work/life balance for his family, moving into the finance sector including stints at Arab Bank and Westpac before founding his own finance firm, Indy Finance. Kent sold that business just prior to the first Covid-19 wave hitting Australia and moved into consulting work before ending up at the Victorian Mortgage Group.

At the start of this year, he made the decision to move to Queensland and was tapped by Banjo Loans to take on the role of BDM in the state.

“I spoke to my wife about moving to Queensland because our kids are grown up now and have flown the coop,” he says.

ASIC ban

ASIC has disqualified Mt Tamborine businessman Laurence Christopher Pereira from managing corporations for up to five years due to serious misconduct.

The corporate watchdog said that between May 2001 and May 2023 Pereira was the director or officer of four companies that entered liquidation: East Coast Services Group, Proactive Energy, PG Projects and LP Finance. The companies were involved in electrical, refrigeration, air-conditioning, and mechanical services in Brisbane. ASIC found that Mr Pereira acted improperly and failed to maintain adequate financial records, comply with tax lodgment obligations superannuation, employee entitlements and Workcover premiums.

ASIC also said Pereira improperly used his position as a director to gain advantages for himself and others, transferred a business from one company to another without paying creditors of the old company, transferred company assets for no consideration and allowed East Coast Services and LP Finance to trade while insolvent.

At the time of ASIC’s decision, the four companies owed unsecured creditors $4,006,382 which included $1,031,357 for unpaid wages, superannuation, and employee entitlements.

In disqualifying Pereira, ASIC relied on supplementary reports lodged by liquidators, Bill Karageozis of McLeod’s Accounting and David Clout of David Clout & Associates.