OAFIT Team

Mr Thomas has been involved in banking, finance, and funds management activities for over 40 years. Under his leadership, Howard Mortgage Trust won the Money Management Magazine “Fund Manager of the Year” award on seven occasions.

Mr Thomas is a member of the Credit and Investment Committee of FC Funds Management and Chairman of FC Capital Holdings Pty Ltd and Finstro Holdings Pty Ltd

Mr Weinberg has over 25 years’ experience in financial technology as a Senior Partner and Head of Corporate Strategy for Optiver APAC, a global proprietary trading company utilising systems and technology developed entirely in-house. Currently Mr Weinberg is a member of the Optiver Global Foundation board.

Mr Weinberg is a member of the Derivatives advisory committee for the Hong Kong, Singapore, and Korean Exchanges and an advisor to Oceana in the promotion of the Trust.

A structured finance specialist, Mr Lewis has spent more than two decades in the industry, launching Oceana Investments (Asia) Limited in 2014, he has overseen the growth of Oceana Funds’ flagship Oceana Australian Fixed Income Trust (“OAFIT”), creating one of Australia’s best performing fixed-income investment vehicles since 2016.

Since inception OAFIT has placed more than $1.5bn of medium-term Notes with wholesale and sophisticated investors. Mr Lewis also co-founded Oceana Property Partners in 2021 and has since completed the funding and acquisition of its founder assets.

Mr Lewis believes in structuring, partnership, risk management, and takes a ‘best-of-breed’ approach to all Oceana's strategic endeavours. Previously he was Executive Director of Oceana Investments (Asia) Limited, responsible for the management of a structured credit and direct equity investment portfolio focused on the consumer and technology sectors. Mr Lewis spent five years at Investec Bank in the UK within the structured finance division and earned an MBA from ESADE Business School in Barcelona, Spain. He has a Finance and Operations Management (minoring in Economics) Degree from the University of Massachusetts, Amherst (cum laude) and is a member of the Credit and Investment Committee of FC Funds Management Pty Ltd and a Non-Executive Director of FC Capital Holdings Pty Ltd. He is also an observer to the board of Finstro Holdings LLC.

Sydney-based banking and finance specialist Gary Segal joins Oceana Funds as COO and General Counsel, bringing more than 17 years of industry experience to the role. He joins us from HSBC Bank Australia Limited where he was formerly Head of Wholesale Legal covering HSBC’s global banking, commercial banking and global markets businesses.

A specialist in corporate finance, Mr Segal has extensive experience in cross border (syndicated, club and bilateral) acquisition and general corporate facilities, distressed debt transactions as well as corporate and real estate acquisition financing. He also has broad M&A and structuring/company secretarial experience including setting up structures for investment syndicates.

Mr Segal will be primarily responsible for overseeing, managing and developing the legal function at Oceana Funds.

A graduate of the University of NSW, Mr Segal holds a Bachelor of Laws (graduating with a distinction average) and Bachelor of Commerce majoring in finance and IT.

Mr Segal was recognised as one of Australia’s rising stars on the Legal 500 GC Powerlist in 2019.

Mr Wong joined Oceana in 2016 and has held the role of CFO since 2019. In the role of Chief Financial Officer, Mr Wong is responsible for all the accounting and financial work for the business and underlying funds, working closely with our audit partners for the relevant entities. Previous roles include working for PwC in Australia and Malaysia with over six years of experience in providing audit services to clients in the property and asset management industry.

Mr Wong is a Certified Practicing Accountant (CPA).

Mr Trifunovic has over 35 years of executive management experience in private and public companies, including VISY Industries. Having managed strategic projects in finance, manufacturing, and operations, with a strong technology focus that has delivered sustainable cost-saving benefits, Mr Trifunovic has proven expertise in building seamless integration between onshore and offshore operations.

Mr Trifunovic has been a member of the AICM for over 30 years and managed a $3.2 billion credit and risk portfolio.

Mr Brehm brings over 12 years of experience within financial advisory, infrastructure, real estate funds management, investment banking, and structured finance. In the role of CEO - FC Capital, Mr Brehm is responsible for executing a range of large-scale cross border transactions in different asset classes including property, infrastructure, derivatives, and private equity.

Mr Brehm previously held roles at KPMG, SMBC, and Deutsche Bank.

Mr Swinton has over 20 years of small business credit risk management experience, ranging from vendor programs to major banks.

As Head of Lending Operations - Finstro, Mr Swinton is responsible for FCFM’s credit and lending operations team and a member of the Credit Committee of FC Funds Management.

Ms Mahindroo is a senior lawyer with over 15 years’ experience working mainly at international law firms (including Norton Rose and Ashurst) and in-house at Westpac, prior to joining FC Capital. She specialises in advisory and transactional work for international and domestic clients across a broad range of industry sectors, having particular expertise in mergers and acquisitions (regulated and unregulated, cross-border and domestic), equity capital markets, infrastructure and resources projects, capital management and restructuring transactions, commercial agreements and general corporate/commercial advisory.

Ms Polles is a governance professional with 12 years of experience in various corporate governance roles across funds management, asset management and education industries. She provides corporate governance, compliance and legal support to the business.

Mr Buss’ experience in the payments industry spans more than 20 years, where he has built several successful enterprise sales teams. Mr Buss comes to Finstro from Shift4 Payments, where he most recently led their Enterprise Business Development Team. Prior to Shift4, he spent several years driving sales within Vantiv/Worldpay, Elavon/U.S. Bank, Wells Fargo, and others.

Mr Speziali has nearly 20 years’ experience in banking and debt advisory, included senior originations, relationship management and distressed debt roles with Lloyds, FIIG Securities, and Westpac Institutional Bank.

Mr Speziali has successfully financed in excess of $1bn of debt across Corporate, Acquisition Finance, and specialized Property transactions.

Mr Harsh is an experienced Senior Software Engineer with over 11 years’ application development experience. As the Head of IT, Mr Harsh is responsible for overseeing the IT development and support teams including the delivery and maintenance of application software, credit infrastructure, and TIQ systems that support the Fund.

Mr Cheng joined FC Capital in 2012 and had more than 8 years experience in corporate finance, extensively involved with numerous mergers and acquisition transactions, corporate finance projects, financial modeling, statistical data analysis and risk management. Currently Mr Cheng is involved in the management of FC’s corporate investment portfolio and involved in the company’s corporate finance transactions.

Mr Diffey has over 30 years of technology experience gained working and living on four continents. Having worked in every role in technology, Mr Diffey has a handson view that has assisted him in using his experience at the executive level for organisations over the last decade, from small agile teams to 250+ global teams.

Mr Diffey redefined the CIO role over the years to ensure technology is focused on adding business value, driven by reviewing opportunities to use technology to enable business to change at the speed we need it to today.

As one of the industries leading Chief Experience Officers, Mr Stanton has a strong portfolio of Fortune 500 companies to his bow. In 25 years of conducting digital transformation programs for Etihad, CitiBank, Macquarie and Westpac, Mr Stanton's energy and perfection have never faulted in crafting exciting digital experience including IBM’s IX Studio in Dubai.