LendInvest bucks industry trend, posts £3.4m in profit in 2016

Secured property lending platform LendInvest notches £3.4m of profit in 2016 off the back of 133 per cent revenue growth.

LendInvest, the largest property-focused marketplace lender in the UK, has posted its third consecutive year of profit, with £3.4m in net profit in 2016. The platform posted a similar figure of £3.3m in the previous year.

Revenues and headcount grew substantially at LendInvest in the 12 months leading up to 31 March 2016. The company raked in £32m in gross revenues for the period, up 133 per cent from the previous year’s total of £14m. LendInvest’s annual lending grew 84 per cent on a year-on-year basis, from £174m to £320m. The company now boasts a cumulative lending total of around £775m, according to the Liberum AltFi Volume Index UK.

“At LendInvest we’ve worked very hard to create a marketplace business that provides a great proposition for borrowers and a good investment for investors,” said Christian Faes (pictured above), co-founder and CEO of LendInvest. “However, we’ve also worked extremely hard to scale the business in a profitable, financially viable way.”

LendInvest now employs 90 full-time staff, up from 34 in 2015. FY 2016 also saw Stephan Wilcke (former executive chairman of OneSavings Bank) join the company as senior adviser.

LendInvest says that the business model has proven resilient to the post-Brexit uncertainty. Gross revenues for the first four months of the new financial year (FY 2017) have been 59 per cent higher than during the same period in the previous year. Meanwhile incoming investment volumes have grown by 50 per cent during the first six months of the new financial year. 

LendInvest is not a pure marketplace lender. The company accepts funds from individual investors through the platform while also managing its own funds, as well as making use of bank funding lines. LendInvest Capital, formerly known as Montello Capital, is the manager of these funds. 

The amount of private investor money on the platform grew by 135 per cent to £80m in 2016. The total amount of private investment now managed by LendInvest is over £105m. LendInvest Capital now manages close to £100m. The company secured a £40m warehouse funding line from Macquarie in April of this year.

“In this lower for longer interest rate environment, the continued search for yield remains ever more prevalent among investors of all types and we are working hard to be able to supply better access points to a much sought after asset class that have never before existed,” said Faes.