A diversified offering has helped this commercial broker organise and grow his business, Samuel Finance
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Representing South Australia in this year’s list, Greg Samuel began his journey as a commercial broker seven years ago after seeing a gap in the market. Coming from ten years in commercial and corporate banking, as well as in merchant banking overseas, he saw the need for good brokers who could prepare a deal and present them in a fashion banks could process easily.
Since then, the business has grown to four people, including a residential broker. The majority of his commercial deals over the past year have been development finance; however, he also settled a number of significant farm finance transactions. He settled deals in SME finance, equipment and asset finance and commercial real estate. Samuel comes from a fourth generation farming family and has an interest in his family’s poultry farming business, which has given him a strong understanding of farm and agribusiness lending.
Samuel says offering such a comprehensive suite of services is good for managing his business; asset finance deals are a “quick win”, home loans a bit longer, and commercial longer again. “Offering the full suite is good for managing the cash flow of the business,” he says. “I tend to gauge the business performance on the home loan activity - that’s our bread and butter - and then the commercial stuff is the cream on the cake.”
The diversification piece also means he can help his customers in more than the one area they might originally come to him for. He gives this example: “I have a client that came to us for a $400,000 farming loan. They wanted to buy an extra farming property. It seems like a lot of work for not very much, but when you do a bit more digging there’s probably about $600,000 or $700,000 worth of investment loans you can look at.
“While they initially came to me for that loan, we’re going to put together a proposal to restructure all their finances and we should be able to get a really good result for them.”
While the residential space has been noticeably affected by the property market and the tightening of credit, Samuel says he hasn’t had too many issues in commercial. The biggest problem he finds is when a residential loan is tied in commercial lending, which for some lenders, means greater scrutiny of the commercial transaction. He says he has noticed a slight rise in turning to second tier lenders over the past 12 months, but he will always go to a major first for the better pricing and terms.
But he adds, “Pre-sales have increased and LVRs have decreased, so that’s started to bring into play some of the second tier development lenders.”
Looking ahead, Samuel says he is “buoyed and optimistic” about the economy in South Australia and his future business growth. Samuel Finance expects to employ another broker in the next 12 months.
“The South Australian economy is sitting pretty and I expect it will continue to do well. I think my business will continue to be busy and I’m expecting to grow,” he says.
Total value of commercial loan settlements: $92,633,000
Number of commercial loans settled: 15
Average commercial loan size: $6,175,533
Years as a commercial broker: 7
Aggregator: FAST
