MONTHLY MUSINGS – NOVEMBER 2023
WE ENJOY SEEING OUR BORROWERS THRIVE AND EXPERIENCE SUCCESS.
This week we hosted a roundtable lunch with the co-founders of Campaign Agent, Shaun Moriarty and Seth Watts.
One of the most satisfying parts of our job is to watch and be part of the growth journey of many small and medium sized businesses across Australia.
We first met Shaun and Seth back in 2018 when they were early into their journey building Campaign Agent.
For those not familiar with the company, Campaign Agent has gone on to become the leading financier of marketing and listing expenditures for homeowners and property agents, recently notching up over A$1bil in loans funded since inception. Campaign Agent helps finance marketing and advertising costs if you are looking to sell your home, make upgrades for sale, or simply wanting to unlock purchaser deposits prior to settlement.
Upon first hearing about the business, we saw many of the critical elements of a successful non-bank finance company. We could see a real ongoing need in the market for their offering, a hard to replicate model when fully established, easily identifiable and measurable risk profile of the underlying loans they were making, aligned management and founders with true skin in the game, and nascent credit processes and systems.
At Roadnight, we endeavour to assist companies from inception through to when they require larger wholesale debt funding. As an important segment in our investment universe, the principals of Roadnight each have over 25 years in structuring capital solutions and investing in non-bank finance companies. We aim to add value by not only providing capital, but also assist in setting up structures and processes to meet the requirements of larger institutional capital and bank warehouses. Assistance can extend to providing subject matter experts from our network to resolve pain points that inevitably pop up along the way.
After two years of being a significant shareholder in the business, REA Group Ltd. recently acquired the remaining shares of Campaign Agent and is now a wholly owned subsidiary. The acquisition by REA Group, a large digital advertising enterprise with a market cap of A$19bil, is further testament to the quality of the business that Shaun and Seth have built.
