La Trobe have retained their status as a ‘superior’ lender, despite a year of upheaval within the financial industry.
The non bank was given a 4.25 star rating by SQM Research, one of the leading independent funds rating agencies, which marks them out as one of Australia’s leading players in the non bank sector and pays testament to the faith that has been put in them by the mortgage broker channel over several years.
“The benefit to us as a business is that we get a set of independent expert eyes that come into the business to look at all the things that we say we do to the market, look at our track record, our investment disciplines, our portfolio construction methodologies and assess them against the best that’s available in the sector and in the market,” said Chris Andrews, Chief Investment Officer and Deputy CEO at La Trobe Financial.
“In the case of SQM Research, they’re headed up by Louis Christopher, who is a well-known commentator on the property sector. They have a particular expertise in our sector, and we’re really please that we have the highest rated fund in that sector. That’s a really pleasing confirmation for our business but also for our investors about the quality of the investment selection disciplines that we put in place.”
For brokers, the rating cements La Trobe’s position as a key lender to have on call.
“If you think about it through a broker’s set of eyes, what they see is again, the confirmation of the quality of the business,” said Andrews. “It’s a really thorough review of our processes and disciplines, and you simply do not get a high rating without being a really well resourced, really high quality organisation, and that applies equally to brokers as well as investors.”
“For us, the answer is that we’ve built our business to be resilient to these moments in the market. We have had seven decades of experience in our asset class, we’ve built a funding base and a liquidity profile, a business and corporate discipline that allows us to succeed in difficult moments. That’s reflected in a strong rating, even in difficult times.”
