Chair of winding-down Funding Circle fund to join Third Point board
SME Credit Realisation Fund (SCRF) chair Richard Boléat is set to take yet another board seat.
Boléat will join the board of hedge fund Third Point Investors as a non-executive director from March.
He will continue as chair of SCRF, which was previously set up to back loans on the Funding Circle peer-to-peer lending platform and is in the process of being closed.
Third Point oversees around $18bn (£13bn) of investments, managed by billionaire investor Daniel Loeb.
Boléat will bring his experience with the former Funding Circle fund and also holds chair positions with CVC Credit Partners European Opportunities and the M&G Credit Income Investment Trust.
The appointment was confirmed by both SCRF and Third Point this morning (22 February).
Rupert Dorey, chair of Third Point Investors welcomed the “expertise and further independence” that Boléat would bring.
SCRF launched in 2015 to back Funding Circle’s P2P loans.
It announced plans to close in 2019 after it was hit by hedging costs and the impact of new IFRS accountancy reporting requirements.
The fund is believed to have gradually represented less investment on the Funding Circle platform in recent years as it has attracted other institutional backers.
Almost a fifth of each registered shareholding in the fund was redeemed as of the end of October 2021.
This increased to 25.6 per cent last month when around £17.1m was returned to shareholders.