Several Macquarie bankers have joined Ortus Financial to build a major independent debt advisory firm spanning residential, commercial, agri lending, and private banking.
Ortus Financial (Ortus) has rapidly grown its presence to become a large independent brokerage after scaling its national footprint and expanding its team with several senior former Macquarie bankers.
Originally founded in 2019 by ex-Macquarie Bank division director Adam Rakowski, Ortus was designed as a private bank-style advisory firm, offering long-term partnership, disciplined structuring, and lending advice across residential, agri, and business lending scenarios.
The brokerage has accelerated its growth in the past few months, welcoming several senior leaders to its team, including Andrew Rasby (the former acting CEO of Police Bank and a former executive general manager of Yellow Brick Road), who joined the brokerage as its new general manager in June, while several senior executives from Macquarie Bank joined the 40-person company in September.
Con Tsiorvas, former head of corporate property group and business banking NSW division at Macquarie Bank, joined the brokerage as its new head of distribution, and Harley Beaumont, a former Macquarie commercial banking director specialising in professional services, corporate, and property lending, is now Ortus’ partner for the state of Victoria.
The Ortus team also includes several other senior Macquarie bankers, including its NSW partner Paul Cilia (a former executive director of Macquarie Bank and head of commercial property lending at Macquarie Bank), and its head of commercial, Joe Perrone (a former head of technology for business banking at Macquarie).
Senior bankers from Rabobank also form part of the company’s senior leaders, with Ben Larkin and Matt Costello (both former Rabobank managers for major agribusiness clients) leading the agri-finance side of the brokerage, which was launched last year to meet the growing demand for broking services in this space.
Speaking to The Adviser about the brokerage’s growth in 2025, founder Rakowski said that the brokerage had “assembled some of the most talented ex bankers and senior directors from Macquarie Bank, Rabobank, St George and NAB” and now has “multiple staff in regional areas which have suffered most from shrinking bank presence”.
He noted that he believed bankers were increasingly attracted to broking due to the loss of institutional knowledge, a reduction in agri, and commercial banking offerings, plus “a narrower, relatively inflexible and focused policy lending approach”.
Ortus splits into 4 arms
The new hires come just months after Ortus entered a joint venture with financial services company Findex (a financial advisory and accounting company), which has seen Findex’s lending business brought under the Ortus Financial brand.
Brett Collins, senior partner for accounting and business advisory at Findex, told The Adviser that the deal came after the group was “impressed” with Ortus’ “client-centricity and depth of capability across the commercial and agricultural markets”.
“Being a national business, they are ideally placed to support our vast Findex network and, in a short time, have delivered some truly exceptional outcomes,” he said.
“We are very excited for what the future holds for our clients.”
The Findex deal has now triggered the brokerage to create a national company spanning four strategic divisions:
- Ortus Resi (headed up by Findex managing partner Daniel Hilton)
- Ortus Commercial (headed up by Perrone)
- Ortus Private (headed up by Rakowski)
- Ortus Agri (headed up by Costello).
Given the Findex acquisition, the brokerage also now operates under two aggregators: YBR (which Ortus was originally aggregating through) and LMG (which Findex aggregates through) and has 11 offices in total.
Its loan book is now over $3 billion, and the brokerage has settled more than $6 billion since inception.
Speaking to The Adviser about the brokerage’s growth in 2025, Rakowski commented that Ortus now has tailored capability to deliver on the needs of clients needing commercial property and equipment finance, residential mortgage broking, agri-finance lending, and solutions for ultra-high-net-worth (UHNW) clients.
Rakowski said: “We pitch ourselves as a debt advisory firm, not a broking firm. This speaks to our long-term mindset and relationship focus. We’re not transactional and seek to earn the trust of our clients as we play the critical role of a trusted adviser. They seek out our opinions and thoughts on future plans, hence it’s really an advisory service and not a broking service…
“We’re energised by creating long-term relationships and having that advisory mindset is something which is very much resonating with the market, particularly in the high-net-worth/UHNW and agricultural space. These cohorts of clients want honesty, insights and informed opinions, they don’t want motherhood statements and a one-size-fits-all approach.”
Touching on the future trajectory of the group, he said he intended to become “the only genuine end-to-end national, independent broking and advisory firm”.
Rakowski explained: “There are plenty of great, large brokers in NSW or in Vic or who might have a ‘satellite’ office. We have genuine capability and people in five states of Australia – and whether it be funding a cotton picker, a first home buyer or an ASX-listed borrower looking for growth capital, we have someone in-house to do this well.”
He said that the team at Ortus has a shared 1,000 years of experience between them, adding that the combined tenure in the industry gives the brokerage “access to senior people at these private banks that others can’t access”.
The founder noted that the agri arm was a “huge opportunity” for brokers and stated: “Farmers and the adjacencies are crying out for practical, honest, long-term debt advice. We have big plans to broaden our push into this space, particular in QLD.”
According to the Ortus Financial founder, brokerages are increasingly looking to consolidate into larger brands and build their presence with diversified offerings.
“Clients are more informed and they have higher expectations of service delivery. The smaller firms will find it increasingly difficult to deliver outcomes on a consistent basis amid this backdrop,” he told The Adviser.
“The banking landscape has also changed materially in the last 5–10 years. Major lenders are looking to grow via a narrower, relatively inflexible and focused policy lending approach. This backdrop is increasingly difficult for clients to navigate, resulting in increased demand for the services of quality commercial/diversified finance brokers and a broadening of the products, services and offerings demanded of commercial brokers by their clients.
“Those firms with a genuine, long-term advisory approach will flourish. We fully expect broker penetration in non-resi lending to substantially increase in the short term and in the medium it will rival existing resi broker penetration around that 75 per cent.”
The year 2025 has seen a marked outflow of bankers becoming brokers, particularly from senior leadership positions. The move comes as more than three-quarters of borrowers now choose brokers for assistance with their home loans and seek specialist support.
The exodus of bankers to broking has seen some banks sweeten the deal for home loan bankers over the past few years, with several major banks making a concerted effort to attract more bankers with larger remuneration packages and investing in their banker sales force to grow their share of proprietary lending.
[Related: NAB’s proprietary lending soars 46% in under 2 years]
