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The personal lending fintech has appointed an experienced chief financial officer to its board of directors, and agreed revised corporate debt terms.
MoneyMe has announced that Rachel Gatehouse has been added to its board of directors and will become chair of its audit and risk management committee.
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Ms Gatehouse is the founder of renovation tech platform Clyde Street and has over 30 years’ financial services experience across the asset finance, motor finance, retail banking, structured lending and BNPL sectors.
She has held senior finance and chief financial officer roles at a range of financial and technology institutions, including at Capital Finance Australia (1997–2004), HBOS Australia (2004–10), ANZ (2010–13) and equigroup (2014–15).
As well as working in retail banking, Ms Gatehouse also previously worked at venture-capital backed firms including solar financing fintech Brighte and was the acting chief executive officer (CEO) of the Australian Institute of Company Directors between 2015–18.
Commenting on the appointment, MoneyMe’s chairman, Peter Coad, said the company was “delighted” to welcome Ms Gatehouse to the board, adding: “Rachel has significant financial services and governance experience which complements the board’s existing capabilities.
“Rachel will chair our audit and risk management committee, where her governance and industry experience will be of great value.”
Funding structure approved
The new board appointment comes after the non-bank lender agreed revised terms to its corporate debt arrangements.
It has agreed binding legal documentation with Pacific Equity Partners (PEP), its corporate debt provider, after formally “recalibrating” covenant settings to reflect the company’s recent growth.
The agreement comes following the $25 million acquisition of SocietyOne (for which it secured a senior secured facility from PEP), and includes milestones relating to the implementation of the strategic capital initiative, which includes the early repayment of the senior secured facility (plus associated costs).
This will restore the facility back to its original size of $50 million.
The group has now Morgan Stanley to assist with “a competitive process to identify new capital solutions”, which will enable the company to repay the $25 million of funding (and associated costs) of the senior secured corporate facility and “take advantage of substantial growth opportunities in the Australian consumer and auto finance markets”.
It said it expects to announce a transaction “by the start of the fourth quarter of FY23” (consistent with the agreed milestones with PEP).
Clayton Howes, CEO and managing director of MoneyMe, said: “The agreement with PEP is an important step in securing the group’s funding to support future growth, and I would like to thank PEP for their ongoing partnership and commitment to supporting the business into the New Year.
“Our strategic capital initiative remains on track and the quality and level of engagement is testament to the impressive challenger platform MoneyMe has built over the last 10 years. We are looking forward to completing the current process to enable the group’s next growth phase.”
He continued: “We are confident that our continued delivery of customer-centric innovation while managing the business to the current market environment is the best strategy to generate attractive returns for shareholders.”
According to MoneyMe’s 1Q23 trading update, the group expects revenue to be greater than $200 million for FY23 and has a focus on statutory profits.
Mr Howes commented: “We are pleased with the progress made in executing our profitability strategy for FY23, which has been bolstered by proactive cost and margin management, the successful post-acquisition migration of SocietyOne, moderated loan originations in the immediate term, and losses well within provisioning levels.
“As I have said before, we do not think that the current share price reflects the value that has been created and look forward to seeing that change as MoneyMe delivers on its strategy.”
[Related: MONEYME courts aggregators in quest to challenge banks]
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