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The chief executive of UK peer-to-peer lender Funding Circle said the pandemic had finally convinced sceptical investors that the company could survive an economic downturn, as it looks to stage a “big comeback” after a difficult start to life as a public company.
Funding Circle, which originates small business loans for other financial institutions and retail investors, listed at a valuation of about £1.5bn in 2018, but at its nadir last year its market value of under £100m was less than the amount of cash on its balance sheet.
However, investors have warmed to the company in recent months, as government-backed loan schemes helped it move toward profitability for the first time in its history. The stock price has more than doubled in the past six months, and stronger than forecast full-year results reported on Thursday helped push shares to their highest level since a profit warning in July 2019.
Samir Desai, chief executive, acknowledged it had been “a tough few years” thanks to a combination of Brexit, a global pandemic and company-specific issues. But, he said, “today I’m feeling better about the business than I’ve ever felt . . . we’re hoping this is the start of our big comeback story”.
The company reported a pre-tax loss of £108m for the full year, with results dragged down by a previously-announced writedown on loans that it had intended to sell on to other investors before the pandemic hit.
However, the second half of 2020 marked its first pre-tax profit of £7m, while its preferred measure of profitability — adjusted earnings before interest, tax, depreciation and amortisation — was £20m, stronger than predicted in a January trading update that was already more optimistic than previous forecasts.
“I’ve spent 10 years being asked ‘what happens when you go through a recession?’ I can finally prove that returns [for investors in Funding Circle’s loans] — although they’ve been lower than pre-pandemic as we always said they would be — are all positive,” Desai added.
Neil Rimer, partner at Index Ventures, Funding Circle’s largest shareholder, said: “We’ve known for a while that Funding Circle’s technology allows them to lend money more quickly and efficiently than banks. Now we also know that Funding Circle worked through the crisis to provide vital loans to small businesses, which are the backbone of the economy.”
Funding Circle was the first major IPO among a crop of digital lenders that emerged in the UK in the aftermath of the last financial crisis, but it came under pressure after a decision to tighten lending criteria forced it to slash growth forecasts.
Desai said the experience of the last year had helped prove the decision “was the right thing to do for the long term”, but said it was understandable that investors were upset when the company reneged on its IPO commitments.
Many executives insist they are not concerned by the short-term fluctuations of the stock market, but Desai said that “it’s foolish to say it doesn’t” affect morale among staff and investors, particularly as it knocked the confidence of retail investors who fund a portion of Funding Circle’s loans.
“There was never a point I thought the company was going to go out of business . . . it’s not like I was worried existentially, but I was concerned we might be hobbled by it so the company became a shadow of what we could be.”
Funding Circle has since scaled back its ambitions in mainland Europe, but is planning further expansion in its core markets of the UK and US after developing new technology to automate loan underwriting. The company said the new tech, in addition to reducing the cost of scaling its existing business, would allow it to offer services such as commercial credit cards and payment finance.
“It’s quite nice running a profitable business,” Desai joked. “If I’d known that I would have done it ages ago.”
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