In an exclusive interview with GoAutoNews Premium, outgoing CEO Gary Thursby and chairman Bernie Campbell have revealed the progress they have made after six months in transitioning from the St George operations plus another six months of building up the Angle Auto business structure.

Mr Thursby, who is moving to a broader role with Cerberus Capital Management (which owns Angle Auto Finance) and will maintain a role of executive director at Angle Auto, said that Angle Auto acquired the wholesale loan book of St George and along with that purchase won the right to recruit St George’s dealers across to Angle Auto as partners in the sale of retail loans.

Gary Thursby

“In March this year, we completed the transition. And we’ve been running full steam for a bit over six months now,” Mr Thursby said.

“We had to build our own company, our own processes and our own systems which was quite a challenge. But it was also good because we started with a clean sheet of paper. We were able to build from scratch. So, I’m really pleased that that has been achieved.

“We had the learning and insight of how Westpac had been running it (St George) and we had the learning and expertise of people across the industry who we recruited, and that helped us to build what we thought we needed to be competitive in this market and to win over time,” Mr Thursby said.

He said that 98 per cent of the dealer groups that were with St George have moved across to Angle Auto and that “in the past six months, volumes of applications have been stronger than the past two or three years within Westpac”. 

“So we have not only seen 98 per cent of dealerships come across, their commitment and support for us as a business is proving to be as strong if not stronger than it was at St. George.

Bernie Campbell

Mr Thursby said that across the board, Angle Auto has more than 800 dealerships with 85 per cent of those dealerships attached to large dealer groups, plus 15 per cent which are smaller independent individuals who might have a couple of dealerships together. 

“So that’s probably representative, like-for-like as the industry is consolidating so we are really pleased with that sort of spread across the market.” 

Mr Thursby said that Angle Auto brought 225 people across from St George and the company then recruited another 175 staff. 

We pride ourselves on the culture that we have fostered, and we have a team of people who are very passionate in what they do and are invested in our business. 

“So the two things that have resonated for me, in terms of the quality of the culture and company and the sort of vision we have for the future, is our very low turnover and our very high discretionary effort. 

“Our people are motivated and working at a fast pace. They are happy to do it and they see a great opportunity to keep working here and continue building a very special business.” 

Mr Thursby said the 225 people who came from Westpac had “worked in and around this business for a long time. They understood it in the Westpac context. 

“About 80 people in the distribution team or the relationship management team, the people who had the relationship with the dealers, came across to us. So they bring that relationship, they bring that history with them. And then they take it forward with Angle Auto into the future. 

“We have people who know these (dealer) businesses and they have known the dealer partners for a long time. But they’re more empowered now. And they’re more motivated, because they can see the opportunity that we have ahead of us.

“Our focus is to build the broadest and largest relationship management team across the country of any of the financiers; both the tied ones and the independent ones.”

Mr Campbell said: “More feet on the street in the states where our dealers operate. The control of our credit team is centralized, but our actual credit team is spread around the country. And that does make life a lot easier when somebody in WA is assessing a deal in WA or someone in Victoria is assessing a deal in Victoria. It just makes sense.”

He said that when Angle Auto was making the transition from St George he was worried that some of the 225 people coming across from Westpac would find the new approach challenging and wondered how they would fit into the new environment at Angle Auto. 

“The good news is, actually, they responded really well, because they have run that business for a long time. They know how to do it, and additionally they have now been empowered by executives for whom this is the only game in town.” 

Mr Campbell said he was also worried by “the sheer volume of what we had to do”. 

“We were going to launch in December. In fact, we weren’t ready. And we communicated that to dealers and said we would have a launch in March. 

“So, in March we went from a standing start to doing 400 car loans a day.  We were doing that within six weeks. We are still doing just as many car loans a day and most of that is through dealerships. 

“So one of the things I am amazed at is that we became the biggest startup in town. The sheer scale of it and the ability of Gary and the management team, who were able to go from a standing start to become a consequential player doing hundreds of loans a day is a pretty interesting achievement,” Mr Campbell said.

More next week.

By John Mellor