Finance company Thorn Group, which sold its consumer finance business Radio Rentals in 2021, is now negotiating to sell its asset finance business. Releasing its financial report for the year to March yesterday, Thorn said it was in discussions “with a party which has expressed interest in acquiring Thorn Australia’s and Thornmoney’s asset finance portfolio”.  It said negotiations were incomplete and ongoing. Thornmoney’s asset finance originations were A$118.2 million for the year to March. Thorn also provides invoice finance as part of its business finance operation. That business had $37.2 million of drawdowns during the year. The company also reported breaches of the compliance parameters in its warehouse during the year – something that has been an ongoing problem for Thorn. It is funded by a rated securitised warehouse facility. Between May 2020 and July 2022 the warehouse was in runoff due to breaches of its arrears covenant. Thorn was unable to sell its originations into the warehouse during this period. The warehouse was restructured, with a limit of $200 million, and re-commenced in August last year. The senior notes are held by a major Australian bank. The facility is available until August this year and Thorn said it is negotiating a renewal. But it also said there were technical breaches of compliance parameters in the warehouse during the financial year and for the period to May. All breaches were remedied. Thorn earned revenue of $14.4 million for the year – down from $15.5 million in 2021/22. It made a profit of $2.5 million. After adjusting for profit of $3.9 million from the discontinued consumer finance operation, it made a loss of $1.3 million. The company was cashed up after the sale of Radio Rentals, with $86.7 million of cash and cash equivalents on the balance sheet in 2021/22. But after a capital return to shareholders of more than $40 million last year, the cash position has dwindled to $28.8 million. It was only a year ago that Thorn was pinning its hopes on business finance as its direction for the future and was promising to launch “a suite of business finance products”. Now that strategy is under a cloud. The company may be looking to a return to the consumer finance market. In May it outlaid $5 million to take its stake in MoneyMe to 8.6 per cent and flagged further buying.