NZ Finance buys 51% of Finance Direct

New Zealand Finance Holdings has taken a majority stake in a consumer finance business through cash and a share placement.

Tuesday, 3 April 2007

NZ Finance has the option of acquiring the balance of the shareholding in Finance Direct to gain total control within four years.

“We have been assessing many opportunities to further grow our business and we chose to go with a quality company in the consumer market. We thought it made more sense to look for a clean, well-run company that needed an injection of capital so we could move it to another level,” NZ Finance managing director John Callaghan says.

“Finance Direct is an exceptionally well established consumer based financial organisation. Its co-founders have solid and lengthy experience in the sector. The company is well-skilled in matching its client’s needs to appropriate lenders. It has a reputation for adopting a conservative approach to lending and any loans that don’t meet its criteria are brokered to a more appropriate lender to minimise the company’s risk.”

Callaghan says the deal allows NZ Finance to further diversify its product base and range and it also means another range of products for our substantial distribution network.

“Finance Direct has developed flexible and innovative methods of borrowing for people wanting to buy property, consumer goods/debt consolidation or marine, something until now we didn’t offer our customers,” Callaghan says.

Finance Direct executive director Murray Greig says that “the impact and industry fall out” in the finance company sector in the past 12 months had made it harder for the company to achieve its growth plan.

“Joining up with NZF made sense. We have something to offer NZF particularly since we are a large provider of business to non-bank lenders. We have good systems and our ‘lifecycle’ approach to lending has resulted in strong relationships with our clients.”

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