Non-bank lender pushes into funds business
Non-bank lender Avanti Finance is looking to grow its funds management business.
Thursday, May 28th 2026, 9:46AM
Avanti is one of the largest non-bank lenders in New Zealand with assets of around $3.7 billion. Chief executive Fred Ohlsson says it has seen strong growth in the past couple of years and its market share in the non-bank mortgage lending market is around 25%.
Traditionally, Avanti has used warehouse facilities from banks and securitisation as its funding methods.
While Westpac is the key player in the warehousing market other banks, particularly BNZ are also players. Avanti has managed to secure funding from offshore banks including JP Morgan.
Now it aims to grow its fledgling funds management business, Avanti Capital. Currently it has three wholesale PIE funds with around $200 million in funds under management.
“We recently came to realisation, we need to push it even more, because there is a massive opportunity for us in the market,” Ohlsson says.
To help with this push Avanti recently appointed its treasurer Paul Jamieson to run the funds management arm, and grow it so it accounts for about a third of its funding.
At the moment the Avanti Capital funds are wholesale-only and focus on the high net worth and private wealth firms, however it is looking to expand its distribution.
Ohlsson says Avanti has the scale to grow this business because of the volume of lending it does.
“We originate, $10- 20 million of loans every day. I mean, we do close to $200 million every month.”
Of the three funds one is short term mortgages and bridging finance.
Ohlsson says there is “enormous demand” for these loans at the moment.
Another fund is a mix of short term mortgages, and also property development. And the a third fund is property development only.
The Private Credit Fund 1 has a target return of 8-10% pre-tax and net of fees and costs while the Private Credit Fund II has a target return of 12% plus.
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