Tony Carboon

A career spent on other people's money

I have worked in Australian financial services for more than thirty years. I started in banking and lending, moved through insurance and risk, and settled in financial planning and wealth management, which is where I stayed. The through line across all of it has been sitting down with somebody and working out what their money is actually for.

Advice should be straightforward, transparent and practical. Most of the job is making something complicated clear enough that a person can make their own decision about it.

Mine Super

A large part of that career was spent at Mine Super, the industry fund for the resources sector. I worked there as a financial adviser, then as Manager of Financial Advice, then as Executive Manager Engagement for Queensland. I also held Responsible Manager, Practice Manager and Advice Coach roles, which meant carrying the licensing and compliance obligations personally rather than reading about them in a memo, and leading teams of advisers and lending staff rather than only my own book.

Advising members of an industry fund is unglamorous work. It teaches you quickly how ordinary people actually think about retirement, and how far that sits from the theory.

Five years in private practice

I then spent five years advising with Super Advice Australia and PictureWealth. I passed the FASEA adviser exam in 2020, at a point when a significant number of advisers left the industry rather than sit it, and completed a Graduate Diploma of Financial Planning with Distinction in 2023. I also hold a Diploma of Finance and Mortgage Broking, which comes up more often than you would expect, because the question underneath an investment is usually a lending question.

I run my own SMSF. That is not a qualification, but it does mean the questions people ask me about super are ones I have had to answer for myself.

Why Bali hospitality

I joined Geonet Property & Finance Group as a wealth specialist covering Queensland. The group develops and manages hotel and resort projects in Bali with international hospitality brands, and the current flagship is ELLE Resort & Beach Club in Seminyak, a five-star beachfront project of 168 branded suites operated by SONO Hotels & Resorts.

It is an unusual asset class for an Australian retail investor. The work is understanding what would actually be owned, deciding how large a position could sensibly be, and testing that against the plan a person already has. Thirty years of doing exactly that with superannuation, property and lending is what I bring to it.

Working with advisers

A good deal of my time now goes to financial planners, mortgage brokers and accountants whose clients have raised a Bali project with them. Advisers tend to be cautious about it, reasonably so, since it sits well outside what most practices see in a year. I supply the ownership documents, the operator information and the structuring detail for the file, and will join a client meeting as the technical voice where that helps. There is no cost to the practice and nothing attached to it.