The $100m dollar man
THE Geelong Performing Arts Centre will nurture creative industries and offer co-working spaces as part of a strategy to reinvent itself as a broader cultural precinct with wider community connections.
The GPAC name will also come under review as part of new boss Joel McGuinness’s plan to align the centre with Geelong’s clever and creative city vision.
With the second stage of a major redevelopment under way and a new chief executive at the helm, it appears Geelong’s home to the arts is at a pivotal point in its evolution.
Outlining his views at a Geelong Business Club function, Mr McGuinness said everything was up for consideration as part of the “reinvention” of the centre.
“Does our brand currently serve us into the future? I feel like we have to have a good look at it,” he said.
“Geelong Performing Arts Centre, and GPAC as an acronym, I don’t think that necessarily tells people what we do and what we are about.”
The masterplan for GPAC, which requires a further $160 million to complete, has been underpinned by a desire to open and activate the centre to the community. GEELONG mortgage broker Warren Freeman has his sights on settling $100 million in loans in the next 12 months as he continues a stellar rise up the ranks of Australia’s top brokers.
The Cosimfree principal is on target to again be in the top 10 individual brokers in the Professional Lenders Association Network this financial year after settling more than $94 million in loans.
Passing the $100 million milestone in 2018-19 is the goal for Mr Freeman, who has navigated a remarkable rise after returning to Geelong in 2009 as the Global Financial Crisis played havoc with his mortgage broking business on the Gold Coast.
“Banks weren’t lending money and things were super, super tough,” he said.
“I couldn’t access funds; I had the clients but couldn’t get the money.”
But the tougher trading conditions of the GFC, accompanied by a more regulated industry that included minimum entry qualifications, thinned out the ranks of brokers.
“Adversity creates opportunity,” Mr Freeman said.
He returned to Geelong on a mission to succeed, settling almost $18 million in loans in 2009-10.
The Professional Lenders Association Network, which represents about 1700 brokers, acknowledges its top achievers in two categories: total amount written, which favours those in more expensive property markets, and total number of loans.
Mr Freeman was slogging out the hard yards doing home visits until a mind-opening experience after he was rewarded for being in the top 15 for number of loans written with a trip to Vietnam alongside the country’s leading brokers.
“This was the key to my success because I was now for the first time rubbing shoulders with the best brokers in the country,” Mr Freeman said.
He decided to put in practice what he learnt and rented an office in Ryrie St in 2012.
“I am thinking, ‘People are not going to see me, the reason they use me is I go to their home, I make it easy for them’ … but I have to believe what the top brokers on the Vietnam trip were telling me.”
Having a professional office created a positive impression, added credibility and gave him the confidence to dream of buying his own office.
By 2013-14 he wrote almost $50 million in loans and the following year he moved to his own office in Gheringhap St and added his first employee in March 2015.
A bumper year saw Mr Freeman just miss out on PLAN’s top 20 loan writers for total amount settled, but he broke through the following year and he is confident of moving into the top 10 this year after continued growth.
The business now employs six people with each member bringing specific talent and adding efficiency into the operation.
“The best thing for this business is me identifying the team, their skills, and applying those skills to the areas of the business that are going to make the business stronger and better,” he said.
Mr Freeman, who is grateful for the support he has received from the Geelong community, said looking forward and investing for growth, rather than reacting to it, had proved beneficial.
“You have to invest and plan for growth and put the staff on first and train them in readiness for the growth.”