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The former CEO of Bluestone Home Loans has become the first CEO of Resi, as the lender prepares to become an independent non-bank.
Campbell Smyth – the former CEO of Bluestone Home Loans (2014–23) – has joined non-bank lender Resi Wholesale Funding Pty Ltd (Resi) as its inaugural CEO.
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The Resi brand – an associate of the Yellow Brick Road Group (YBR Group) – first established its own product in 2019 and co-owned by Magnetar Capital and has since grown its own warehouse-funded mortgage loan portfolio size to approximately $400 million.
Smyth has now been appointed to spearhead the non-bank as it restructures to become a stand-alone lending business.
The new Resi CEO has more than 25 years of experience in the financial services space, having worked at Bluestone for more than 12 years, and having previously held roles at National Australia Bank and Challenger as well as a credit fund manager Absolute Capital.
In his new role as CEO, Smyth will build the sales function and increase the penetration of the Resi brand into the YBR Group’s franchise and independent broker networks.
It is expected that Resi may eventually expand into broader third-party distribution and build its product range as it seeks to “become a leading independent non-bank lender in the Australian mortgage market”.
Smyth said the change was a “huge opportunity” and was “very eager to drive these initiatives forward and appreciates the support of the YBR Group and Magnetar”.
Speaking to The Adviser, he said: “The YBR Group is a network that has been able to show value to their brokers by their brand, their expansion with YBR Aggregation, and their Resi offering.
“Resi has the benefits of being associated with the broader group and being aligned to a distribution business that is optimised for what we’re trying to achieve.
“Part of my coming in is to drive growth, and drive the balance sheet because there is big potential in it and we want it to fulfil its potential.”
The new Resi CEO said his first priorities are to “optimise” how Resi is working within the network so it is “working as smoothly and cleanly as possible” (both from a sales perspective and an underwriting perspective) and to ensure that it is “giving brokers as much as [it] possibly can in terms of that breadth of product”.
“Now that it’s getting to four years old, we’re looking at maturing that funding program,” Smyth said.
“After that, I really want to get heavier into process and experience – both for brokers and staff and mature the business on that front.
“A bigger lever that we want to pull is the differentiation of experience that you get when you’re dealing with Resi. But we need to make sure we do these things in the right order and as we do each of them, we do them right and actually deliver value.“As we grow, we will do more and more ourselves and become even more stand-alone. We will ultimately end up finding ways to distribute our product through other networks, which will help us continue to grow and enable us to provide a pretty unique and attractive product to brokers outside of this network.”
The Resi restructure
As well as appointing a new CEO, a series of new agreements are now being made to transition Resi into being a stand-alone business (including, for example, Resi taking over the employment of the Resi sales, credit, and support teams from the YBR Group to give Smyth more control, direction, and accountability of the brand's resources), subject to several conditions.
In a note to shareholders, seen by The Adviser, Mark Bouris, executive chairman of YBR, said: “This is a key initiative and important milestone in the strategic review of the YBR Group we announced in 2023, being to restructure the YBR Group’s efficiencies and value. We expect these matters to save cost to YBR, but more importantly, deliver better outcomes and direct control to [Resi].”
Adrian Bouris, chairman of RWF, said: “The actions we are taking represent several significant and complex structural initiatives, achieved through thoughtful planning and collaboration by YBR and its partners.
“We anticipate they will greatly boost [Resi’s] growth and positioning in the market.”
Smyth said the change was a “huge opportunity” and was “very eager to drive these initiatives forward and appreciates the support of the YBR Group and Magnetar”.
The YBR Group has been in a period of transformation over the last few years after delisting from the ASX last year, appointing several new senior leaders at head office and announcing the retirement of the Vow Financial brand (its wholesale aggregation offering) as it launched YBR Aggregation.
[Related: Vow Financial brand to be mothballed]
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