Ranger Direct Lending sees slowed growth in August

RANGER Direct Lending (RDL) today posted a slight dip in net asset value growth to 0.72 per cent for August, in line with analysts’ expectations.

The London-quoted investment fund, which invests predominantly in US alternative lending platforms, had already informed the market that August returns would go down slightly from July’s figure of 0.79 per cent.

The trust, unlike its peers P2P Global Investments and Victory Park Capital, has been unaffected by the weakening of the pound post-Brexit as 95 per cent of its portfolio is denominated in currencies other than sterling.

“The returns were in line with our expectations,” Conor Finn, analyst at Liberum, told Peer-to-Peer Finance News.

“Unlike its peers, RDL lends through smaller, more niche alternative platforms in the US, rather than the bigger players. It may work harder to find opportunities but then it has less competition.”

Earlier this month, RDL announced a net profit of $9.94m (£7.5m) for the first half of the year. Investment manager Bill Kassul told P2PFN that the company “definitely has more room to deploy investment capital”.

“We have delivered returns between 70 to 80 basis points each months for the last six months,” he said. “We have a good stable of platforms and are always bringing on new ones.”

Kassul added that he would love to invest in UK P2P platforms in the future, such as LendInvest, if they opened a lower yield fund.  

RDL’s shares were trading 0.1 per cent higher at £11.01 at 16.10 GMT, more than six per cent higher than its issue price when the firm floated in May 2015.