Ex-CBA veteran, former Premier launch $100m fund

Binaya Dahal

Editorial Intern, Financial Newswire

11 March 2026

Mark Wang, former Head of Private Capital Markets at Commonwealth Bank, and former NSW Liberal Premier, Nick Greiner, have teamed up to launch Australia’s newest institutional corporate private credit fund.

The Sydney-based vehicle, Colter Bay Capital, was unveiled after securing $100 million in institutional liquidity from a domestic fixed-income manager and a Gstaad-based Swiss family office.

According to Wang, the fund will focus on Australia’s lower mid-market, which faces an estimated $25 billion funding gap across 26,000 businesses.

“Colter Bay Capital exists to fill that gap with patient, intelligent capital that recognises the true value of great businesses,” Wang said.

“We are here because the market needs us and because the opportunity is genuinely compelling for investors who understand it.”

Wang believes Australia stands at an inflection point in private credit, with target businesses well positioned for growth.

“They have the cash flows, the management, and the track records. What they lack is a lender willing to look beyond the balance sheet,” he said.

“We are that lender, bringing institutional rigour to a market that has been waiting for it.”

Moreover, Greiner will anchor the fund’s advisory board, and Kirk West, former Executive Managing Director of the US$600 billion Principal Asset Management, will join him as a strategic adviser.

Greiner said Colter Bay Capital was designed to address a structural market gap with a credible team and a robust institutional framework.

“I have spent much of my career at the intersection of business, government, and finance, and I know that productivity growth is the ultimate driver of Australian living standards,” he said.

“The inability of our best small and mid-sized businesses to access intelligent, flexible capital is a genuine constraint on that growth. I joined because I believe in both the mission and the people executing it.”

Furthermore, Sean Garman, an Australian-born investor based in New York, has been appointed chairman. He said the scale of opportunity in Australia’s private credit market was evident to anyone familiar with more mature markets.

“Australia has all the ingredients for a deep, sophisticated private credit market: a strong rule of law, transparent business practices, a mature superannuation system hungry for yield, and tens of thousands of businesses that banks simply will not back on reasonable terms,” Garman said.

“Colter Bay Capital will build that market, transaction by transaction, demonstrating that private credit done well benefits businesses, investors, and the economy.”