Together’s lending slides 29 per cent but profits jump

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  • 16/09/2021
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Together’s lending slides 29 per cent but profits jump
Together’s gross lending fell by 29 per cent year-on-year from £1.7bn to £1.2bn for the year ended 30 June.

 

On average, Together’s monthly gross lending reached £97.6m down 31 per cent from £140.7m in 2020.

The specialist lender’s loan book, which totalled £4bn down from £4.2bn the year before, is made up of residential first and second charge lending, buy-to-let, unregulated bridging, commercial and development loans. The largest portion of the book is made up of buy-to-let lending at 27 per cent followed by first and second charge lending which accounts for 26 per cent of the loan book.

In March at the start of the pandemic, the lender stopped all new lending and in June it cancelled all commercial and pre-offer residential pipeline cases, before laying off 180 staff in July. At the start of September, Together cautiously resumed lending.

Some 98 per cent of Together’s new lending was advanced at less than 80 per cent loan to value (LTV). The average LTV for the book was 52 per cent.

Profit before tax was up by 59 per cent from £94.6m to £150.3m which the company attributed to successful securitisations and new process and product improvements.

Together’s net interest margin was squeezed from 6.4 per cent to 6.1 per cent.

Chairman Mike McTighe (pictured) said: “Our momentum has been increasing, and monthly lending in the final month of the [financial] year returned to pre-pandemic levels.”

He added: “This increase in lending is supported by strong levels of liquidity and the group’s funding headroom has never been higher at £1.4bn. We have continued to raise new funds from the debt-capital markets across our financing structure.

“Later in the year we launched our first two commercial mortgage-backed securitisations and, shortly after the year end, a further private securitisation facility.

“Thanks to such measures, and a raft of process and product improvements the group’s profitability not only exceeded last year’s but reached its highest ever level.”

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