LendInvest “remains open for new business”
Lendinvest chief Rod Lockhart has said that the specialist mortgage lender “remains open for new business” during the pandemic and intends to keep lending.
The fintech firm revealed that it completed 70 bridging loans and over 150 buy-to-let loans during March and continues to complete loans already in its pipeline.
“It has been a year of extraordinary events – continued Brexit uncertainty, an unscheduled General Election and now a global public health crisis,” said Lockhart.
“Through it all, however, we have focused on growing our business responsibly and building a resilient base for long-term stability.
Read more: LendInvest reassures investors it’s ‘business as usual’
“No-one could have predicted how turbulent the market environment would be when we reached year-end.
“The company made the decision this week to use the government’s job retention scheme and furlough some staff, but remains open for new business with more than 140 of the company’s staff still working remotely. We intend to keep lending, albeit with much greater caution.”
Read more: LendInvest tightens lending and freezes recruitment
LendInvest ramped up its lending over its last financial year, thanks to several new institutional funding lines. It secured £200m from HSBC UK and £200m from National Australia Bank during the 12 months to March 2020.
LendInvest also completed two securitisations during the year, comprising £259m of UK prime buy-to-let mortgages and £285m of UK prime buy-to-let mortgage loans in June 2019 and March 2020, respectively.
This has raised the lending capital base for the business to more than £2bn as of the end of March 2020.