Australian Guarantee Corporation
| No longer trading | |
| Industry | Finance |
| Fate | Acquired |
| Successor | GE Money and Westpac Banking Corporation |
| Founded | 1925 |
| Headquarters | Sydney, Australia |
| Products | Personal Finance Business Finance Retail Finance Dealer Motor Vehicle Finance Investments Line of Credit Insurance |
Founded in 1921 as Australian Guarantee Company to initially provide finance for purchasers of smaller household items, it progressed into financing motor vehicles and was renamed as Australian Guarantee Corporation Limited in 1925 ("AGC"). AGC was Australia's oldest national finance company offering a range of finance, investment and insurance products and were market leaders in equipment finance, cashflow finance, motor vehicle and personal finance.
AGC was registered as a public company on 18 June 1925 and listed on the stock exchange in 1928. Its business specialised in lending for cars and farm machinery and later expanded into personal loans and lending for non-farm business equipment. Most of the funding for AGC's loans came from issuing debentures to the public, offering attractive interest rates. The first Managing Director was Mr G K Bain who assumed control from the company commencement until his retirement in 1956.
Having a strong association with Ford Motor Company, which had just opened an Australian office and was establishing a dealer network, AGC incorporated Traders Finance Corporation Ltd ("TFC") on 10 July 1925 to provide financing exclusively for the Ford dealer sales network. TFC was wound down in the late-1970s although AGC continued to maintain a large percentage of Ford dealers business.
Transport and General Insurance Insurance Company Ltd was formed in 1938 as a wholly owned subsidiary of AGC to provide insurance facilities for purchasers of vehicles from the motor dealer network, and for general insurance needs of the affiliated motor dealers. The name was changed to AGC (Insurances) Ltd in the mid 1970s to better identify with the AGC products. The business was sold to AMP Society in 1989 and operated as AMP United Insurances Ltd.
In 1957 the Bank of New South Wales (later called the Wales, the forerunner of today's Westpac) bought 40% of AGC and over the years progressively increased its interest to a majority stake of 76% and then acquired all remaining shares in 1988. Banking regulations at the time prevented banks from doing the sort of lending finance companies like AGC did, but buying a finance company let the banks get around that. All the major Australian banks ended up with finance company subsidiaries doing riskier lending than the banks themselves would. The Wales let AGC run as an independent business, and that included giving no guarantees on the debentures issued by AGC.
Initially AGC operated through head office in Sydney, with state operations in each capital city. The first regional branch presence was established in Toowoomba, Queensland in 1958 under the management of Mr K (Keith) M Jack who would later become the Managing Director in 1980.
Further branch expansion quickly followed in all states and by the mid-1970s AGC operated more than 100 branch offices with over 3,000 staff. With advancing technology in the mid-1980s most suburban and regional branches were closed and the business operations were again centralised in large state operations, servicing clients statewide by local resident sales staff or electronically from state centres.
...
Wikipedia