Bridging
Relendex targets doubling of lending in Q2
Peer-to-peer lender Relendex is expecting to double its deal flow in Q2 over Q1, and then again by Q4, executive chairman Paul Sonabend told Specialist Lending Solutions.
As a result, Relendex expects to meet its £100m lending commitment target for the year to 31 January 2020.
In the first three months of the year enquiries broke £125m, growing at about £10m a week from the beginning of January.
Chairman Paul Sonabend (pictured) clarified that in three months up to March the lender completed about 12 deals, reaching a maximum deal size of over £6m.
Looking at the future, in terms of mean loan size, Sonabend said that the increase in capacity means that the peer-to-peer lender is considering loans up to £7m.
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He added: “A small number of high value loans will result in our average loan size exceeding £1m.
“In terms of new areas, with the increase in our business development manger (BDM) network and their associated broker relationships, Relendex can comfortably cover loans throughout Great Britain.
“We have considered loans in Northern Ireland too but have yet to complete one.”
This comes after the appointment of Martin Whitworth as BDM covering the North West region in April.
As part of its growth plans, in January Relendex also appointed Fintan O’Riordan as director of lending, joining from Paragon Bank where he worked as head of development finance.
Two sides of business
Sonabend told Specialist Lending Solutions that this growth is driven by a partnership that Relendex signed in September 2018 with a debt fund with unlimited budget.
The executive chairman declined to reveal its name for confidentiality purposes.
He added: “Relendex provides two sides of business. We finance loans on the platform, with a capacity of about £4m a month, and we also have the side where we can originate loans by our debt partner.
“Finances come from a US company, one of the largest equity loan companies in the world, wishing to be in the UK bridging refinancing market.”
He concluded that within the £100m that the peer-to-peer lender is expecting to originate, it is likely that about half will go to the debt fund and the other half to the platform.