Genworth Financial Mortgage Insurance has secured a 22% stake in Household Capital, an Australian provider of home equity retirement funding, closing a $37.6 million series C capital raise.
Genworth joins Household Capital as a strategic investment partner, alongside Legal & General UK (L&G), Citi, ad IFM Investors.
“Genworth’s renewed mission as a long-standing expert and major player in the Australian mortgage market is to deliver the benefits of homeownership to Australians throughout life,” Household Capital CEO Joshua Funder told Financial Standard. “Genworth has a real appetite to deliver the benefits of homeownership not just for first home buyers but extending their contribution and expertise to the last 30 years of Australian homeownership, which is retirement. We’re very much aligned in focusing on the family home as both housing and funding for retirement.”
“Genworth is delighted to have entered a strategic partnership with Household Capital,” Genworth CEO Pauline Blight-Johnstone said. “This investment demonstrates a significant step toward achieving our purpose of accelerating financial wellbeing through homeownership.”
Funder said that with conclusion of the capital raise, Household Capital is now focused on growing its share of the home equity retirement funding market and improving access to long-term retirement funding options to people throughout Australia.
The key to this, he said, is to ensure Australians understand and have confidence in their own home equity and can use it for the long term.
“We need everybody to become aware and understand, we need financial advisers, the public, super funds and their members, mortgage brokers, and their clients to all become aware of home equity in retirement funding,” Funder told Financial Standard.
