Former Rugby World Cup champion joins Centuria Bass Credit

Centuria Bass Credit (CBC) has welcomed David Giffin, the former vice captain of the Wallabies, to the role of deputy chief executive.

He has also become the co-head of lending, responsible for private lending origination and loan management across Australia and New Zealand.

The former athlete-turned-financial professional brings around 20 years' financial services experience, including in various capacities at Allco Finance Group since 2006 and vice president at Commonwealth Bank between 2010 and 2014.

He joined Grant Samuel as director in capital advisory in 2014, a role he held for four years, and was most recently the co-chief executive officer at Taurus Finance for more than six years.

Giffin was instrumental in securing more than $5 billion of debt and equity across these positions, including more than $1 billion of capital for Taurus Motor Finance before it was acquired By Metrics Credit Partners.

In his new role, Giffin will report to CBC founder and joint chief executives Nick Goh and Giles Borten.

"It is a pleasure to welcome David to the Centuria Bass fold and to have such a credible, seasoned professional join our senior ranks at a time of significant growth," Goh and Borten said in a joint statement.

"David's experience across capital raising and loan management is a perfect match to assist CBC continue its growth trajectory."

Notably, Giffin is known as the winning member for the Wallabies in the 1999 Rugby World Cup and was also a part of the runner-up squad in the 2003 Rugby World Cup.

The news coincides the firm's recent effort to secure a $150 million warehouse facility, with an initial $100 million senior secured commitment from UBS.

The investment will exclusively finance first mortgage bridging finance and residual stock loans to real estate borrowers, CBC said, continuing to lay its focus on the non-bank real estate lending sector which it considers as a "key growth" market in Australia.

"Within the past three years, Centuria Bass has grown its funds under management from $270 million to $2 billion and looks to capture further tailwinds from this sector," Centuria joint chief executive Jason Huljich said.

"We are pleased to further expand our institutional partnerships through our first financing commitment from UBS.

"The new facility further diversifies Centuria's capital sources and liquidity with the ability to immediately deploy funds."

The warehouse increases the company's assets under management to $1.9 billion as at June 30 2024.