Assetz Capital hit £1bn lending target

“The capital will cover the cost of our sales and marketing drive, employing additional staff and technology investment that will focus on automating more of our back-office functions” Stuart Law said.

“We are actively looking to make acquisitions in the alternative Finance sector in the UK and
are targeting smaller companies struggling to reach critical mass that are interested in being acquired by an established player.”

“Assetz Capital is additionally looking to raise GBP £700m in senior debt from banks and pension funds later this year, with the capital allowing the lender to complete GBP £500m in loan origination next year and GBP £1bn the following year, Law said. It is on course to finance more than GBP £300m in loans this year, he added. In February last year, we secured GBP £325m in funding from various financial institutions to finance loans for our various products including commercial and buy-to-let mortgages, SME finance and bridge loans.”

“In February 2015, we raised GBP £3.2m via a convertible note offering to retail investors on the equity crowd-funding platform Seedrs, with a further GBP £3m raised from institutional investors.”

“As a secured business lender we typically back loans against a property. Doing so allows us to issue larger loans, averaging GBP £250,000-GBP £2m, with the largest valued at GBP £9m. Assetz Capital has grown 300% per annum since April 2013, lending more than GBP £100m last year and we are on course to achieve our target of GBP £300m this year – making Assetz Capital the third largest P2P lender in the UK behind Funding Circle and LendInvest.”