Harmoney Expands Advisory Board with Global Expertise

AUCKLAND, New Zealand, Oct. 14, 2015 /PRNewswire/ -- Harmoney Corp Limited, Australasia's largest and fastest growing peer to peer lending marketplace, today announced that two of the world's leading P2P experts Jon Barlow, Founder of Eaglewood Capital Management and Phin Upham, Principal at Thiel Capital, have joined its Advisory Board.

Harmoney Founder and Joint CEO, Neil Roberts says the company is delighted to have the caliber of Jon Barlow and Phin Upham join our Advisory Board, as well as also becoming Harmoney shareholders. "We are thrilled to welcome Jon and Phin to the Harmoney Advisory Board, and look forward to their contributions which will be invaluable in helping Harmoney build on its impressive first year achievements."

Mr. Barlow brings tremendous capital markets expertise to Harmoney. In 2013 while at Eaglewood, Jon Barlow completed the industry's first ever securitisation of peer to peer loans. Securitisation is often viewed as a crucial industry development as it enables a wider array of institutional investors to purchase P2P loans.

"New Zealand/Australia has the potential to be one of the most profitable P2P markets in the world, and Harmoney has established itself as the leader in that market," commented Jon Barlow.

Mr. Upham's expertise in technology and innovation will be particularly helpful as Harmoney focuses on making greater use of emerging technology, especially in mobile.

"Jon and Phin will extend Harmoney's access to large capital pools enabling Harmoney to pursue ambitious growth targets and service the strong and growing demand for higher investment returns and risk-priced borrowing," adds Neil Roberts.

Mr. Barlow and Mr. Upham join existing Advisory Board members Brian Barefoot, Etienne Boillot, Scott Bommer, Charles Moldow and James Punnett, who represent a cross-section of global marketplace lending expertise.

Notes to Editors

Jon Barlow
Jon Barlow is the founder and former CEO of Eaglewood Capital Management, a leading asset management firm, specialising in online and marketplace lending investment strategies. In 2014 Mr. Barlow led the sale of Eaglewood Capital to an affiliate of Marshall Wace LLP (MW Eaglewood), a London-based alternative asset manager. He served as MW Eaglewood's global CEO, overseeing its New York and London business units, and as a member of its board of directors until his departure in 2015.

During his tenure at Eaglewood, Mr. Barlow assisted with the successful initial public offering of P2P Global Investments (ticker "P2P"), the world's first publicly traded peer-to-peer debt investment vehicle, on the London Stock Exchange.

Prior to founding Eaglewood Capital, Mr. Barlow worked for Weiss Multi-Strategy Advisers, a New York-based asset manager, and Lehman Brothers, where he worked as a Portfolio Manager and Vice President within proprietary trading. He started his career in Equity Research at J.P. Morgan.

Mr. Barlow graduated with a B.S. in Accounting, cum laude, from Brigham Young University and is a CFA charter holder. He lives with his wife and four children in Westchester County, New York, where he is actively involved in various non-profit organisations.

Phin Upham
Phin Upham is a principal at Thiel Capital, an investment firm founded by Peter Thiel who is best known for co-founding PayPal and Palantir and being an early backer of Facebook. Their early investments in online lenders include OnDeck, SoFi and Avant.

Previously Mr. Upham worked at Morgan Stanley in the Investment Banking Division and at Tishman Speyer in private equity.  Before that he was a financial journalist at the National Post and UPI.

Mr. Upham has an MBA and PhD from Wharton Business School, University of Pennsylvania and a BA from Harvard University.  He has written widely on innovation and technology for business journals and edited three books.  He has been a Visiting Scholar at Columbia Business School's Chazen Institute of International Business and NYU's Department of Economics as well as a Senior Fellow at Wharton's MACK Institute for Innovation Management.

Mr. Upham currently serves as a Visiting Scholar at the Haas Business School (Berkley).

About Harmoney
Harmoney operates New Zealand's first licensed Peer to Peer Lending platform bringing together people who want to lend and prime creditworthy borrowers who want to borrow, a practice that has existed for generations but until now has been closed to retail investors. 

Harmoney's founders and management team have a proven track record starting a business in 2001 that processed NZ$3b in personal loan applications over a 5 year period before a successful sale to a US based conglomerate. The team has delivered shareholder value in excess of NZ$1b over 12 years.

Harmoney recently highlighted its achievements at its 1^st Year Anniversary:

• Facilitated NZ$100 million of personal loans in less than 12 months
• 65 new jobs created
• Launched on 10 September 2014 with NZ$100 million of committed lending capital from institutions including Blue Elephant Capital Management & Heartland Bank
• Heartland Bank becomes a 10% shareholder
• Welcomed Trade Me as a 15% shareholder (January 2015) at NZ$55m valuation
• P2PGI completes funding round of NZ$200m debt and equity at a valuation of NZ$100m.

Borrower highlights:

• 70,000 loan applications received c. NZ$1bn in value
• Proprietary credit scorecard delivering expected credit performance
• 90% of loans funded by the marketplace within 24 hours

Investor highlights:

• Welcomed 3000 active individual investors with average account balance of NZ$6,000
• Generated average realised yield of c.13% (net of fees and losses)
• Investors earned total interest income of NZ$6m
• Welcomed several large institutional investors incl. P2P Global Investments PLC

SOURCE Harmoney

Related Links

https://www.harmoney.co.nz