Your earnings read properly
Add-backs, depreciation, retained profits, director loans and one-off expenses. Lenders differ enormously on all of it, and that difference is usually where the answer is.
Business lending
Your business, read by someone who used to approve the loans.
Twenty-four years inside the big four banks, deciding whether businesses like yours got funded. Book a complimentary conversation about what your business can actually carry.
Book My Complimentary Conversation
100% private. No obligation. No spam.
- Speak directly with a senior broker
- Serviceability tested against real policy
- Know where you stand before you commit
Adrian HardieDirector and Senior Broker, Mildura VIC
You’ll be talking to Adrian.
Director and Senior Finance Broker
- 24 years inside the big four banks
- Masters in Agribusiness, University of Melbourne
- Runs his own business, so he reads yours properly
24 yrsBig 4 banking
30+Lenders on panel
MFAAMember #856566
AFCAMember #119660
What you get
Three things you walk away with.
One broker, and he comes to you
You talk to Adrian, not a call centre and not a relationship manager who will be replaced next year. His preference is to come to your business and see how it actually runs.
No pressure to go anywhere
The conversation is complimentary. If you choose to proceed afterwards, a one-off engagement fee applies and it is disclosed in writing before you commit to anything. After settlement, Adrian is paid a commission by your lender, not by you.
★★★★★
Adrian was fantastic in our appointment, making sure I understood all options, with high attention to detail. Super friendly and easy to talk to. High quality of professionalism. Highly recommend him for anyone wanting more knowledge or looking to get their future started.
Verified Google Review
Individual results vary. Your outcome depends on your circumstances and lender assessment.
Why Adrian
Five reasons this conversation is worth your time.
- He was on the other side of the desk for 24 years. He knows how commercial credit teams price risk and where their policies bend, because he spent his career applying them.
- He runs a business too. Adrian owns and works an avocado block in Sunraysia. Uneven cashflow, a supplier who let him down and a capital job that could not wait are not theory to him.
- Covenants get negotiated, not accepted. Covenants are where business facilities go wrong three years later. There is a point at which they are negotiable, and most people do not realise when it is.
- A panel of more than 30 business lenders. Including non-bank and private capital. One bank gives you one answer, shaped by whatever its appetite happens to be this quarter.
- It does not stop at settlement. Annual reviews and rate benchmarking are included for as long as you are a client, so loyalty pricing does not quietly go unchecked.
The complimentary assessment
Exactly what gets done, before you pay anything.
- We sit down, at your business. What you are trying to do, the timing, and the money it needs. Adrian would rather come to you and see the operation than do it over the phone.
- Your numbers collected and organised. Financials, tax returns, ATO integrated client account, aged debtors and creditors, BAS, existing facility schedules and covenant reporting. You gather it once, in the shape a credit team expects.
- What the business can actually carry. Serviceability and cashflow analysis. Normalising earnings, working through add-backs, and testing the debt against realistic trading rather than an optimistic forecast.
- The deal pre-assessed and structured. Facility mix, security, entity structure, term, amortisation and covenant positioning, built so it is approval-ready before it goes near a lender.
- Your position tested against lender credit appetite. Appetite moves constantly, by industry and by facility type. You get an indicative outcome: whether this works, roughly what it looks like, and what it would take to get there.
Around 14 hours of specialist work, worth about $3,500 at typical market rates.
It costs you nothing.
Value calculated at $250 per hour, the typical market rate for comparable specialist advisory work. It is not a fee charged to you. Hours vary with the complexity of your situation.
Book My Complimentary Conversation
100% private. No obligation. No spam.
How it works
Three steps, and we do the running.
Pick a time
Choose a slot that suits you from Adrian’s calendar. It takes about two minutes, and you get a confirmation straight away.
We talk it through
Forty-five minutes by phone or video, or at your place of business if you are near Sunraysia. Your trading position, your plans, and how a credit team would read them.
You decide what happens next
You finish with an indicative outcome and a clear picture of what proceeding would involve. Whether you take it further is entirely up to you.
About
Who you’re actually booking with.
I spent 24 years inside the big four banks. I sat on the other side of the desk, applying the credit policies that decide whose loan gets written and whose does not, and I watched plenty of good businesses get assessed badly because nobody took the time to understand how they actually trade.
I also run my own business. I own and work an avocado block in Sunraysia, so a lumpy quarter and income that does not arrive in tidy fortnightly instalments are not abstractions to me.
That combination is the whole point of Hardie Finance Group. I know how lenders think, and I know what it looks like from your side of it.
Common questions
Before you book.
Does the assessment cost me anything?
No. Everything up to and including the indicative outcome is complimentary. If you decide to proceed afterwards, a one-off engagement and mandate fee of $1,800 plus GST applies, disclosed in writing before you commit to anything. It is the same fee regardless of how much you are borrowing. After settlement, I am paid a commission by your lender, not by you.
Will this affect my credit file?
No. Talking to me and having your position assessed does not touch your credit file. A credit enquiry is only lodged when you decide to submit an actual application, and I ask you before that happens.
My bank has already said no. Is it worth talking?
Often yes. One bank applying one credit policy gives you one answer. Business lending sits outside the consumer credit rules, so lenders have wide discretion and their appetites differ sharply by industry and facility type.
My books are a mess. Is that a problem?
I have heard that a hundred times and it is rarely as bad as people think. Business financials look untidy to their owners and perfectly normal to someone who reads them for a living. Bring what you have and we will work out what is missing.
What about the covenants on my existing facility?
Bring them. Covenants are one of the most common reasons a business ends up refinancing, and they are far more negotiable at the point of setting a facility up than most people realise.
Why is there a fee at all when other brokers do not charge one?
A business engagement is around 35 hours of specialist assessment, structuring and negotiation, and that work happens whether or not a lender says yes. The fee covers it. It also means I am paid to get the structure right rather than to close a transaction, which is a different incentive.
What if I change my mind after engaging you?
The engagement fee is retained once work has commenced, because the work has been done. That is why everything up to the indicative outcome is complimentary: you can see where you stand and walk away at no cost, before any of it applies.
Do you work outside the Sunraysia region?
Yes. I am based in Mildura, Victoria and travel a wide radius around the Sunraysia region. Clients further afield are looked after by video, phone and email, with the same process throughout.
See if it stacks up.
Forty-five minutes with a broker who spent 24 years inside the big four banks, looking at your business the way a credit team would. The conversation is complimentary and there is no obligation to go any further.