To be or not 2Be, bankers Brian Hartzer and Jenny Fagg are cashing out with the sale of their Boomer lender to some scallywags in private equity land not much more than a year after the launch of the business.
Documents filed with the corporate regulator have allowed this column to peek behind the curtain of a deal we’re sure was just itching to be leaked in the newsprint of rival publications.
2Be founders former Westpac chief Hartzer, former ANZ heavy hitter Fagg, and co-founder Michael Sirmai are all set to take a whole lot of money off the table after the sale of their lending business.
Papers filed with ASIC show the deal was consummated on July 7, with the three immediately leaving the firm as directors.
The lending venture had been backed by all manner of interesting folks, including Rebecca Finkelstein, a partner at King & Wood Mallesons, Beforepay chief executive James Twiss, barrister at large Philip Crutchfield KC, Catalytic Impact Capital jefe supremo Paul Byrne, Yarra Lane director Nick Perett, RAA boss Nick Reade, Bank Australia senior business partner Luke Schreurs, Latitude Money technology exec Luke Rankin and Latitude Financial Services boss Bob Belan, among others.
In their stead steps Kevin Wunsh of Tallex Capital and Andre Karney from Laco Investments.
The bankers have signed on the dotted line to buy the business, for a sum we’d like to know.
2Be touted itself as the solution to this nation’s asset-rich, but cash-poor Boomers looking to give their kids (or themselves) a leg-up in what amounted to an almost formalisation of “the bank of mum and dad”.
Borrowers aged between 55 and 75 were offered the opportunity of taking as much as $500,000 off the table from their fully paid-off houses, which they bought back in the day when home ownership wasn’t the near impossibility that it is today.
Fagg and Hartzer had reunited to run the lender, along with Sirmai, the former head of personal loans at Westpac, in what was the latest financial venture from the trio.
Hartzer has launched several forays into the financial landscape, including payday lender Beforepay.
However, with shares in Beforepay down 75.3 per cent from their IPO peak, circling the drain at 48c a piece, we hope 2Be proved the money spinner the high-profile founders hoped it to be.
Slow pace in Kooyong
We told you earlier this week how the starter’s gun had already been fired in the battle for Liberal preselection in the federal electorate of Higgins, previously a blue-ribbon seat lost in May last year by Katie Allen, with a vote to be held by year’s end.
But things are moving more slowly in the now teal independent Monique Ryan-held neighbouring seat of Kooyong, where we hear the preselection race is to be delayed for as long as possible in 2024.
That should suit Goldman Sachs banker and former federal treasurer in the defeated Morrison government, Josh Frydenberg, who is believed to be still weighing up whether he will recontest Kooyong, which he previously held for 12 years.
Frydenberg has kept a low profile and his voice out of the national discourse since his defeat, getting on with life in the private sector and enjoying time with his law partner wife Amie Frydenberg and their two primary school-aged children.
Margin Call hears that the branch membership is eager for Frydenberg to run again, as is his long-time ally former Liberal senator for Victoria Rod Kemp, who runs the party’s Kooyong branch.
Frydenberg thanked the former Howard-era minister by name in his 2010 maiden speech to the parliament.
Frydenberg is arguably the party’s best fundraiser in Victoria with deep connections into the Jewish community and into wider corporate Australia. His failed campaign for Kooyong last year was one of the party’s most costly, though coffers are such that it’s believed the Libs in Kooyong will be able to again fully fund its own campaign.
Material to rally voters away from the outspoken paediatric neurologist Ryan won’t be hard to find. Earlier this year it was revealed via court documents that she had told her now former chief of staff Sally Rugg, with whom she fell out, that she wanted “to be the prime minister one day”.
Rugg also alleged in court docos Ryan told her she could not “have a paper trail” detailing an “off-book” deal to get the CoS out of her office.
So much for Ryan’s election platform of transparency.
Hutchy’s net result
Millionaire Melbourne journalist turned sports entrepreneur Craig Hutchison has added another sporting team to his listed Sports Entertainment Network empire, chancing success where another of his kind, Nine’s Eddie McGuire, has previously failed.
While McGuire in his time chairing AFL club Collingwood was unable to make a goer of the Collingwood Magpies professional netball team, on which the club pulled the plug in May, Hutchy via his $57m SEN on the weekend was awarded what was Collingwood’s Super Netball licence, set to begin from next year.
Former news and television journo Hutchy’s content and entertainment group already owns the Perth Wildcats NBL team. It owns 40 radio stations in Australia and 29 in New Zealand and has a range of other assets, including a talent management arm and content production arm.
The market this week embraced the news that SEN was getting into netball, with its shares up to 22c on Wednesday. CEO Hutchy has 19.7 per cent of the listed company, so his stake is now worth $11.3m. He’s also got 2.4 million options in play.
On top of that the Footy Classified presenter last year pulled $1.5m in remuneration out of the group, $550,000 of which was via a related party deal for Hutchy’s “talent services”.
Not bad for a hack.
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