The short version

The Beacon is a news publication. We report on Australian private credit and property debt.

It is free, and it is funded by advertising. Editions carry paid placements, and we always identify them.

We never sell, rent or share our subscriber list, except with the providers that run the newsletter for us.

We are not financial advisers and we do not hold a financial services licence. Nothing we publish takes your circumstances into account, because we do not know them. Do not treat it as advice about what you should do with your money.

You are welcome to forward the newsletter to anyone you like. That is how it grows.

1. These terms

These terms apply to The Beacon newsletter, to the website and archive at www.beaconnews.com.au, and to everything we publish through them. By subscribing, reading or using the site, you accept them.

In these terms, "we", "us" and "our" mean The Beacon and the people who publish it, and "you" means you.

Our Privacy Policy sits alongside these terms and forms part of them.

2. What The Beacon is

The Beacon is a weekly news publication for Australian readers interested in private credit and property debt. We report what has happened, what has been announced, and what the published data shows. We source and link what we report so you can check it.

We are a publisher. We are not a fund, a broker, an adviser, a research house or a product distributor. We do not sell financial products, we do not accept investments, and we never handle an application for anything.

3. Information, not financial advice

3.1 What we publish

The material we publish is factual information and news reporting. It is not intended to imply any recommendation or opinion about any financial product, and it is not intended to influence you in making any decision about a financial product.

That is our position on everything we publish. Because the line between reporting and advice is not always ours to draw, the rest of this section sets out where we stand if anything we publish is nevertheless treated as financial product advice.

3.2 We hold no licence

The Beacon does not operate under an Australian financial services licence, and relies on the exemption in section 911A(2)(eb) of the Corporations Act 2001 (Cth) in respect of any advice given.

Any advice on this site or in the newsletter is general in nature. It does not take into account your objectives, your financial situation or your needs, because we do not know them. Before acting on anything you read here, consider whether it is appropriate for you given those things, and read any relevant disclosure document, such as a product disclosure statement or a target market determination. Consider getting advice from someone licensed to give it.

3.3 No reliance

Do not make an investment decision on the strength of something you read in The Beacon. We do not know your circumstances, we are not accountable for your outcome, and nothing here is a substitute for your own enquiries or for professional advice.

Past performance is not an indicator of future performance. Yields, returns and rates move. Property values fall as well as rise. Private credit carries the risk that a borrower does not repay.

4. Accuracy

We check our numbers against their published sources, and we link them so you can check too.

Even so, we cannot warrant that everything we publish is accurate, complete or current. We rely on third-party sources, including government agencies, market data providers, company announcements and other publications. Those sources contain errors, revise their figures, and change their methods. Data can be out of date by the time you read it.

If you think we have published something wrong, tell us at [email protected]. We will check it, and if we got it wrong we will correct it and say that we have.

5. Links to other sites

We link out constantly, because a news publication that does not show its sources is not worth reading. Those sites are not ours. We do not control them, we do not check them, and we are not responsible for what they say or do.

A link is not an endorsement. We link to things we disagree with, and to companies whose products we would not comment on either way.

6. Advertising and sponsored content

The Beacon is free because advertisers pay for it.

6.1 We always identify a paid placement

We label every advertisement and sponsored placement, keep it visually distinct from editorial, and carry a line to the effect of:

6.2 When we write about an advertiser

We write about the private credit market. Our advertisers are drawn from that same market, so sooner or later we will report on a company that also advertises with us. We are not going to avoid covering a company because it buys advertising, and we are not going to leave you to work the relationship out yourself.

Where that happens, the item will carry a line to the effect of:

6.3 The rules we hold ourselves to

• Advertising is a flat fee. We do not take commission, and we take no payment based on whether you click, enquire or invest.
• Editorial is never for sale. We do not promise coverage, time coverage, or trade coverage as part of a placement.
• Advertisers are responsible for their own copy, and for making sure it complies with the law.
• Inclusion is not endorsement. An advertisement appearing in The Beacon means the advertiser paid for the space. Nothing more.
• Advertisements link to the advertiser's own page, never to an application form. We never handle an application.

Advertisers are responsible for their own material, including for holding any licence or authorisation their offer requires and for making sure the offer complies with the law. If an advertisement misleads you, your complaint lies against the advertiser, not against us, to the extent the law permits.

7. Companies related to us

We may in future have interests in, or connections with, other companies, including companies operating in or around the sector we report on.

Where we publish something about a company related to us, or where a company related to us advertises with us, we will say so in the item itself, not only in a document like this one. We will also update this page to name the relationship.

8. Subscribing, and leaving

Subscribing is free. When you subscribe, you consent to receive the newsletter, and the occasional identified offer described in our Privacy Policy. We send all of those ourselves.

Every email carries an unsubscribe link, and it works with one click. If it ever does not, email [email protected] and we will remove you by hand.

We may end or suspend a subscription if it is being used to abuse the service, for example to scrape our content or to attack our systems.

The Beacon is free today and we intend it to stay that way, but we are not promising that it will exist forever or that it will never change. We may change the newsletter, pause it, or stop publishing.

9. We never sell or share the subscriber list

We never sell, rent, share or transfer the subscriber list, including to any company related to us. The only parties who ever hold it are beehiiv and SendGrid, the providers that operate the newsletter for us (section 8 of our Privacy Policy).

When a third party's offer reaches you, we sent it, from our system, under our name. They never receive your details. The full detail is in our Privacy Policy.

If the publisher changes, that is not one of the transfers above. In future, we hope to form a company to publish The Beacon. If that happens, the newsletter and your subscription would move across to it, and it is bound by everything on this page including this promise. That would be a change in who "we" are, not your details going to anyone else. We will tell you before it takes effect, and you can leave at any point. Our Privacy Policy says the same thing, in the section headed "If the publisher changes".

10. Our content, and what you may do with it

We own the words, charts, images and design in The Beacon, or we use them with permission, or our use of them is fair dealing for the purpose of reporting news. Our name and logo are ours.

10.1 What you may do

We want The Beacon read and passed around. So:

• Forward it. Send an edition to a colleague, a client, a friend or a family member. As many as you like.
• Print it for yourself or for the people you work with.
• Quote it and republish extracts for personal or non-commercial purposes, as long as you credit The Beacon and link back to the original.

No permission needed for any of that.

10.2 What you may not do

• Republish a whole edition, or a substantial part of our content, commercially or as part of a paid product, without our written permission.
• Present our content as your own, or strip our attribution from it.
• Change our words or our charts and then attribute the result to us.
• Use our name or logo in a way that suggests we endorse you or your product.

10.3 Scraping and machine learning

You may not use automated tools to scrape, crawl, harvest, index or copy The Beacon or our website at scale. You may not use our content to train, fine-tune, ground or evaluate any machine learning or artificial intelligence system. Both prohibitions apply unless we give you written permission. This applies to the newsletter, the archive and the underlying data.

Our charts and the data behind them take real work. Ask us. We are reasonable people.

11. Liability

To the extent permitted by law:

• The Beacon, the website and everything in them are provided on an "as is" basis, without warranties of any kind.
• We are not liable for any loss or damage arising from your use of The Beacon or from reliance on anything in it, including any investment loss, loss of profit, or indirect or consequential loss.
• We are not liable for the acts or omissions of any advertiser, any third party we link to, or any source we report.
• We do not warrant that the newsletter or the site will be uninterrupted, timely or free of errors.

12. Changes to these terms

We may update these terms. The current version is always on this page, and the effective date is at the top.

If we make a change that materially affects you, we will tell you in the newsletter. Continuing to read or subscribe after a change means you accept the updated terms.

13. Governing law

These terms are governed by the laws of New South Wales, Australia. You and we submit to the non-exclusive jurisdiction of the courts of New South Wales and the courts that hear appeals from them.

14. Contact

• Email: [email protected]
• Post: Suite 202B, 39 East Esplanade, Manly NSW 2095, Australia
• Publisher: The Beacon