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Bridging

McGonigle and Fairfax become individual owners of Positive Lending and Catalyst

Owain Thomas
Written By:
Posted:
March 16, 2021
Updated:
March 16, 2021

Paul McGonigle and Chris Fairfax have ended their partnership and joint ownership of Positive Lending and Catalyst Property Finance by each taking over one of the firms.

 

The pair and their families jointly founded Positive Lending as a specialist packager and distributor in 2009, with Catalyst then formed as a bridging lender in 2017.

McGonigle has now taken full ownership of Positive Lending where he is chief executive, while Fairfax has become the owner of Catalyst Property Finance and remains CEO.

 

Growing residential and buy to let

McGonigle told Specialist Lending Solutions the change removed any question about conflicts of interest and noted there was now capacity for Positive Lending to expand its operations.

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“Business will continue as usual although we are already growing areas and will continue to do so in the residential and buy-to-let first charge space,” he said.

“As Catalyst staff are no longer in Positive House we have the capacity to grow our team numbers with the additional space as we continue to grow market share in the broker arena.”

The pair had largely been responsible for the firms they have subsequently taken over since Catalyst was launched to reduce the perception of conflicts of interest, McGonigle explained.

He continued: “Since the lender’s inception I held true to those values and ran Positive Lending transparently, allowing Chris to focus on the lender’s proposition.

“Chris will testify that any business received from Positive Lending would have been hard fought for and been best for that client.

“By removing myself from the lender I can continue to ensure that every client will get the best service and product placement from my team and the market can be under no illusion that no conflict exists, or ever did,” he added.

 

Launch into new markets

Meanwhile, in a statement Fairfax said Catalyst was being funded by a combination of institutional and private capital, with the lender set to launch into new markets later this year.

Catalyst has provided more than £250m of short-term funding to date and has a loan book exceeding £100m.

Fairfax said was absolutely delighted to have completed the acquisition of Catalyst.

“After spending over a decade as a specialist finance broker, I launched Catalyst by compiling everything I learned from working with other lenders, good and bad, to create a business I would have loved partnering with as an intermediary,” he said.

“I believe truly understanding the intermediary perspective and my broad experience of the market are key reasons as to why Catalyst has experienced the amazing growth trajectory to date.

“Looking to the future, we will continue to serve short-term mortgage customers and intermediaries well, and look forward to expanding to other areas of property lending over the coming months.”

He added: “I would like to thank Paul for his contribution to date and I wish him well for the future success of Positive Lending.”