SkyCredit acquires Nimble Australia, boosting its loan book

SkyCredit Pty Ltd, the parent company of consumer lender Fair Go Finance (FGF), has acquired Nimble Australia Pty Ltd and other wholly owned subsidiaries from Nimble Money Ltd, with the acquired assets including Nimble’s loan book and its well-known brand.  In exchange, Nimble Money has gained a shareholding in SkyCredit. 

 The transaction completed on 7 August 2024 after a deal process was run by Nimble and this has considerably boosted the size of SkyCredit’s consumer credit business in Australia. 

Paul Walshe, founder and MD of the SkyCredit Group, asaid the acquisition will boost SkyCredit’s loan book to close to $100 million, accelerating the growth of the business as it seeks to maintain its evolution in the Australian market. 

“The deal is a significant milestone and will expand SkyCredit’s presence in the consumer credit market. This is important in terms of opening up funding sources that can help reduce our borrowing costs, which in turn will benefit our customers,” he said. 

“The addition of Nimble to the Group will get us to a scale that will enable SkyCredit to compete better in the market for customers, capital and staff,” Mr Walshe said.

“Once we are through the integration, we will be well positioned to leverage the groups capabilities and improve the offering to all customers,” Mr Walshe added.

Fair Go Finance and Nimble Australia will continue to operate as stand-alone brands with relatively distinct offerings (e.g. people getting car loans with Fair Go Finance and funds for car repairs from Nimble) and continue to enhance how people interact with credit so that they can boost their credit scores, ultimately helping to remove structural restrictions to accessing consumer finance.

According to Mr Walshe, the SkyCredit Group’s capabilities in credit risk management have allowed the business to experience lower bad debts than what is expected in the near-prime consumer credit market, even in a rising interest rate and inflationary environment.

“Our credit risk capabilities are unique and targeted to a specific segment of the Australian consumer credit market, and as a result, we onboard customers more efficiently and have lower-than-average loss rates, which results in excellent customer experiences. We will bring this leadership to the Nimble brand and look forward to reinvigorating its innovative approach to consumer finance,” Mr Walshe said.

“Our leading technology and experience is making finance faster and more accessible to consumers, at pricing that is based on personalised circumstances, delivering a positive experience to our customers.

According to Mr Walshe, Fair Go Finance is similar to Nimble in a number of ways in, which made the merger an obvious proposition.

“However, over the last decade Fair Go Finance has evolved its credit offering and risk management capabilities to compete well in the near-prime segment of the market, where customers have credit scores of 400 to 600. The merger provides a path to continue this innovation and customer-led offering to people across Australia with a brand they trust,” Mr Walshe said.

Two existing Nimble Money Directors, Graeme Wilson and Ben Edney, have joined the SkyCredit board and the current Nimble Australia debt facilities with Alceon and Partners for Growth have been extended to provide a runway for the integration of Nimble into the Group.

Additionally, Mr Walshe thanks the people instrumental in the transaction being Roger Steinepreis and the team at Steinepreis Paganin Lawyers, Stanley Mok at Dentons (Structured Finance) and the team from PwC Corporate Advisory. He also thanked Nimble Money shareholders who voted overwhelmingly in support of the transaction and their advisers Geri du Plessis from Addisons lawyers and Brad Higgs from Titan Partners Corporate Finance.

Fair Go Finance was founded by Mr Walshe and commenced trading in 2008, at the peak of the GFC. After a decade of sustained organic growth, it acquired a competitor (Capfin) in 2018, which was followed by a corporate restructure with SkyCredit being established as the head entity of the emerging consumer credit group.

Nimble was founded in 2005 and is largely responsible for raising the profile of non-bank lenders across Australia. The business established a unique and recognisable brand on the back of an advanced, customer-led technology platform.

The SkyCredit team is excited to work with the Nimble team, is honoured to have carriage of the Nimble brand, and looks forward to the opportunities that it may open.