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Exclusive: Kensington completes buyout

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  • 02/02/2015
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Exclusive: Kensington completes buyout
Private equity partners Blackstone Tactical Opportunities and TPG Special Situations Partners completed the buyout of specialist lender Kensington last Friday.

Kensington was bought for £180m in September with the final deal completing at the end of last week, with the same PE team behind the Acenden Mortgage Servicing Solutions purchase.

Acenden is being positioned to begin mortgage servicing for Kensington, subject to regulatory and antitrust approval of the deal, according to sources.

Speaking to Mortgage Solutions exclusively, Kensington confirmed it has a raft of creative ideas to push the expansion of its specialist lending portfolio.

“When the time is right there will be the opportunity for us to drive forward. How far, how big I can’t say at this moment in time. But you wouldn’t buy a business like Kensington intending to sit on it,” said Kensington CEO Keith Street.

Kensington said it is primarily a residential lender but plans to grow a raft of specialist areas, including buy to let, which used to be 20% of its lending portfolio.

Street said as an example, the lender’s current lending cap of 65-years-old needs to change because it is losing strong applicants often with just complex investment income requirements.

The lender added it has also done research into tailored lending to professions with lower risk profiles due to greater security of employment and is also looking closely at equity release and a transition equity release product for younger borrowers. Shared home ownership, Right to Buy and custom-build are all also areas of interest for the lender, it said.

Kensington said it expected complete separation from its parent Investec to take six months.

Former Shawbrook CEO Ian Henderson will take over as Kensington’s group CEO with Keith Street continuing to head up the mortgage arm in his 13th year with the company.

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