The country’s most prolific commercial property and business loan writers have been unveiled in the SME Adviser’s Commercial Business Writers ranking for the 2015-16 financial year.
The Commercial Business Writers 2016 ranking, which ranks the 10 most successful business loan writers and 10 best commercial property writers, by volume settled in the financial year 2015-16, revealed that the volume of loans being settled has risen substantially in the past few years. For example, the winner of the business ranking was responsible for settling $320 million in FY16, up from $164 million in FY15, and the winner of the commercial ranking settled $350 million, up from $141 million.
Top business writer
HoldenCAPITAL’s founding partner Dan Holden took the top spot in the 2016 business writers ranking, settling $320 million of business loans in the financial year 2016. The construction specialist told SME Adviser that the average commercial loan HoldenCAPITAL writes is between $7 to $8 million.
Speaking to The Adviser’s new sister title, Mr Holden said the biggest key for breaking into the commercial space is “deciding what not to work on”.
“There’s an abundance of borrowers wanting solutions and there’s a finite number of lenders offering money in the commercial space, so managing your time as to what will cost you money or, if done successfully, create good revenue and good deal flow in your business,” he said.
The two other top spots in the top 10 business writers ranking were taken by Jeff Schembri of Schembri Financial Consulting ($225.6 million) and Daniel Green of the Green Finance Group ($154.5 million).
Top commercial writer
For commercial property, the most successful commercial broker was George Giovas, managing director of Axius Partners, who settled $350 million of commercial loans in FY16.
Mr Giovas advised that those who want to be successful in commercial writing should “really get to understand your client and what they want, not what they think they what or what the bank may think they want”.
“You need to come up with a solutions-based approach and you need to solve the problems. If you do that, you’re an adviser, you’re as good as any lawyer or any accountant or any other practitioner in town. In fact, you’re more valuable because you’re bringing them capital and there’s nothing more important in a business than the access to capital,” he said.
Marshall Condon, founder and CEO of Neue Black, took the second spot in the commercial writers ranking, settling $255.6 million in FY16, while Glen Barnes of Barnes Financial Solutions came in third, settling $158 million in the last financial year.
Discover who else made the top 10 business writers and commercial writers rankings on SME Adviser.