Funding Circle posts higher revenues but pre-tax losses widen
FUNDING Circle has increased its revenues but widened its pre-tax losses, according to a half-year report which echoed last month’s results preview.
The FTSE 250-quoted firm posted a 29 per cent jump in revenue to £81.4m but pre-tax losses widened to £30.8m from £27.1m in the first half of 2018.
Adjusted core earnings fell year-on-year to £1.2m from £3.3m.
The firm also announced that co-founder and UK managing director James Meekings will transition into a non-executive role on the UK board in the third quarter of this year. Lisa Jacobs, currently chief strategy officer, will take over as managing director of the UK business.
The platform confirmed that it now has £3.54bn of loans under management, a year-on-year increase of 37 per cent. This brings the company’s global lending total to more than £7.5bn since inception.
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“We remain confident in our aim to become the world’s largest small business loans provider, helping millions of businesses to create jobs and support economic growth,” said Samir Desai (pictured), chief executive and co-founder of Funding Circle.
“Small businesses remain underserved. Our platform allows them to access the finance they need in a fast and affordable way, whilst at the same time, opening up a stable and attractive asset class to a broad range of investors.”
The results were largely in line with Funding Circle’s trading preview last month and the company confirmed that its guidance for 2019 remains unchanged.
Funding Circle’s shares fell another 7.5 per cent on Wednesday ahead of the results but made a small recovery and were trading 1.8 per cent higher at around 100p at 9.20am GMT. This is almost 78 per cent down on its float price of 440p last year.
Read more: Funding Circle halves revenue growth forecast