Small business shadow minister Bernie Ripoll to retire; US small business lender OnDeck launches Down Under: Midday Roundup

Federal small business shadow minister Bernie Ripoll will not contest the next election, reports Fairfax.

Ripoll, who has held the Queensland seat of Oxley for the Labor Party since 1998, will retire from politics at next year’s election and plans to continue working for his local community in another form. He is expected to continue in the small business portfolio until that time, along with his positions as shadow minister for financial services and superannuation and sport.

“Very few people leave by the front door,” Ripoll told Fairfax.

“There’s never a perfect time to go but I have a year-and-a-half to go before this term’s finished and I’ve had a great wonderful career and I’m so happy with what I’ve achieved.”

Fairfax reports Ripoll’s retirement opens up the way for Brisbane City councillor Milton Dick to enter federal politics, with Dick confirming to Fairfax he will seek pre-selection in Oxley.

US small business lender OnDeck launches Down Under

US online small business loans platform OnDeck Capital has chosen Australia for its first expansion outside North America, with MYOB taking a 30% stake in the local partnership and a group of prominent local investors taking a further 15% stake.

Cameron Poolman, formerly of Graysonline, will be the chief executive of OnDeck in Australia, with other investors in the venture including Seek’s Andrew Bassat and Jason Lenga, along with Healthshare’s Gavin Solsky.

The OnDeck platform can evaluate, approve and fund small business loans on the same day, and has already offered small businesses over $US2 billion ($A2.6 billion) in loans.

MYOB chief executive Tim Reed said the deal is the latest step in an ongoing journey for his company, and comes ahead of a $3 billion IPO planned for the end of April.

“Building on our successful cloud based solutions, and partnering directly with other pioneering organisations such as OnDeck, we will ensure tight integration with MYOB products such that we offer a truly connected service. This is all underpinned by significant and successful R&D investments in cloud based platforms,” Reed said in a statement.

Shares down on open

The Australian sharemarket is in negative territory ahead of the release of China’s latest GDP figures, despite overnight increases in the price of crude oil and iron ore.

“Also to be released is Chinese retail sales and industrial production data, given the poor numbers from earlier in the week the market does need at least a number in line with expectations of growth of 7% not to be sold off,” said Quay Equities analyst Tristan Knell in a statement.

The S&P/ASX200 benchmark was down 36.7 points to 5909.9 points at 12:20pm AEST. On Tuesday, the Dow Jones closed up 0.33%, increasing 59.66 points to 18,036.7 points.