CASE STUDY

Commercial & Residential Property Investor and Retailer
Anthony Bongiovanni

Anthony Bongiovanni is a Retailer and Property Investor (Commercial & Residential) he has had an association with Shaun Huntington for over six years now. Anthony initially met Shaun in 2011 when he was setting up a new business, A Bongiovanni & Sons which is an independent licensed grocer located in Seddon, Melbourne. At the time Shaun assisted with financing the fit out of the business, equipment and working capital. This was a start-up venture that Anthony later went onto sell for a good profit and retained ownership of the property. Since that time Anthony has expanded his Commercial & Residential property investment activities as well as starting a new business, Penny Young Liquor in Moonee Ponds Melbourne. Anthony is very active and entrepreneurial and as such values consistent service and a finance connection that can provide best in market solutions quickly.

Client Need

Following his sale of the Grocery Store the cash flow profile of Anthony’s business interests changed. He had also purchased additional commercial properties and was refurbishing and sub-dividing them as well as negotiating tenancies. His bank at the time (which had not been recommended or introduced by Resilience Finance) wasn’t proactively engaging his funding needs. A competitor had offered to assist with generous funding arrangements but wasn’t delivering after several months of ‘Indicative Offers’ and promises. When Anthony turned once again to Resilience Finance he wanted a financier that could understand his business, the achievements he had delivered in a relatively short time and back his growth plans.

Process Undertaken

Being a former client whom Shaun Huntington had kept in regular touch with the first task was to get familiar with the exact business and financial circumstances at the time. Working closely with Anthony and his key advisors, particularly his Accountants, Resilience Finance was able to get up to speed quickly and assess the likelihood of obtaining the funding in the structure needed to allow his business interests to continue to flourish. Also as part of allowing Anthony the freedom of considering both his current bank and the competitor that had approached directly, Resilience Finance were able to provide key questions for Anthony to ask those parties to uncover the real likelihood of support. Resilience Finance reviewed all financials, valuations as well as taking the time to visit all the security properties and go along with Anthony to the proposed new business sites to understand the concept and its potential. An integral part of Anthony’s requirements was the ability to obtain some ‘cash out’ on a flexible basis to allow him to negotiate a lease on a new site of which the parameters were yet to be fully defined.

Result

Shaun Huntington was aware of a Regional Bank that had significant appetite for SME clients of his nature, with a mixture of property related debt and debt requirements to expand cash flow trading business again.

The refinancing process was handled smoothly with Resilience Finance working closely with the incoming Bank to ensure that there were clearly communicated target dates, transparency in the financial aspects of the refinancing and that Anthony was well supported from a transactional banking platform.

Anthony benefited through this process by achieving:

Additional funding support to enable expansion
Delivered timeframes within the process so he could plan with confidence
Reduced cost of debt facilities

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