Back in late 2018, a group of us sat around a worn table at a Newcastle café. We'd all spent years working in different corners of finance—corporate analysis, investment research, small business consulting. And we kept seeing the same problem.
People were making financial decisions based on headlines, hot tips, and surface-level metrics. Nobody was teaching them to dig into what actually matters—the fundamentals that show whether a company is genuinely stable or just looks good on paper.
So we started polsirevano in early 2019. Not as a training factory, but as a place where people could learn to read financial statements the way we do, spot red flags before they become disasters, and understand the difference between hype and real value.
Six years later, we're still doing exactly that from our Charlestown base—just with better coffee and a lot more students who've gone on to make smarter investment choices.
These aren't marketing phrases we came up with last week. They're the four things we constantly check ourselves against when deciding what to teach and how to teach it.
You'll work with actual financial reports from Australian and international companies. We don't do hypotheticals when real examples teach better.
A ratio doesn't mean much without understanding the industry, economic climate, and company history. We teach you to see the full picture.
If something doesn't make sense, that's often where the interesting learning happens. Our instructors expect you to push back and ask why.
Analysis can't be rushed. Our programs run over months because that's what it takes to properly absorb how fundamental analysis actually works.
We're not a massive operation. Currently it's the two of us leading most sessions, with guest specialists when we're covering niche areas like agricultural commodities or banking regulations. Both of us still do consulting work—partly because we enjoy it, but mostly because staying active in the field keeps our teaching grounded.
Spent 14 years as a sell-side analyst before I got tired of quarterly pressure and wanted to teach properly. I focus on retail and industrial sector analysis, and I have strong opinions about cash flow statements that you'll hear about repeatedly.
My background is corporate credit assessment and bond analysis. I teach the sections on debt structures, covenant analysis, and how to spot when a company's borrowing patterns don't match what management is saying publicly.
Classes meet twice weekly over eight months, starting September 2025. You'll get assigned companies to analyze between sessions—sometimes familiar names, sometimes obscure ones where the learning is richer because you can't rely on what you think you already know.
We cap groups at sixteen people because beyond that, you lose the ability to properly discuss individual analyses. Everyone presents their work at least twice during the program, and yeah, Torben will probably challenge your assumptions. That's the point.
Most students come in thinking they understand balance sheets. By week three, they realize they were only reading the highlights. By month six, they're catching inconsistencies between different reports that even some professionals miss.
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