Thinktank Commercial Property Finance is an independent nonbank financial institution specialising in SME finance secured by first-registered mortgages over commercial and residential properties.

Established in 2006, Thinktank is wholly Australian-owned and was built by a group of finance professionals with extensive backgrounds in financial services – specifically commercial property, and self-employed and SME finance.

With an exacting focus on maintaining the highest standards of corporate governance and compliance, the Thinktank board comprises a mix of the founders of the business and independent professional directors who contribute further diversity of experience and multisector disciplines to the ongoing growth and direction of the business.

Through 15 years of operation, the performance of Thinktank’s portfolio has been consistent with that of near-prime RMBS securities.

With an average loan size of around A$600,000, a weighted LVR of around 64% and fully amortising loans out to 30 years, the characteristics of Thinktank’s book demonstrate a close correlation with prime and near-prime residential lending.

The principal divergence lies with the underlying securities, which comprise a mix of income-producing standard office, small-industrial, retail and residential properties all located in metropolitan and major urban areas across Australia.

Having now originated more than A$3 billion of these small-ticket commercial loans, Thinktank has established an enviable track record of performance with very low arrears and negligible losses. 

The background for such performance can be traced directly to the deep and varied experience of the business’s founders. Sound risk-based disciplines and industry best practice, combined with constructively managing credit and risk through numerous property and economic cycles, has coalesced into a highly professional team that is closely attuned to the state of the market at all times. 

Although Thinktank offers a range of full-doc and alternate-verification loan products, the portfolio is skewed toward the former – between standard full-doc and loans to self-managed superannuation funds that stand out due to very low arrears and zero losses over more than seven years of origination.

Portfolio growth has been measured and strongly supported by long-term institutional and internal stakeholders. It has not been at the expense of credit quality. Weighted-average LVR has trended conservatively over the past five years.

With its portfolio surpassing A$2 billion, Thinktank remains focused on further disciplined growth by capitalising on the quality nature of its relationships at origination and funding levels, amplified by a strategic partnership with Australia’s largest aggregation group formalised in 2018.

Thinktank’s funding model has been predicated from commencement on the principles of traditional wholesale warehouse funding and term securitisation.

The company completed an inaugural privately placed securitised transaction in 2014, which has been followed by successive public deals in 2016 and each year thereafter.

Having become recognised as Australia’s leading programmatic issuer in domestic small-ticket CMBS, Thinktank has continued to expand the nature and sources of its origination and term-funding arrangements.

Cullen Hughes
Chief Financial Officer and Treasurer
+61 2 8669 5518
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Jonathan Street
Chief Executive
+61 2 8669 5505
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www.thinktank.net.au