Landbay revenue soars as number of lenders rises

LANDBAY saw an almost sixfold increase in its revenue last year, driven by a 59 per cent rise in the number of lenders on its platform.

The peer-to-peer buy-to-let (BTL) lender’s revenue totalled £994,495 in the year to 31 December 2017 – an increase of 596 per cent from £142,984 in 2016.

The number of lenders increased from 2,907 to 6,146, while the number of funded accounts rose from 1,425 to 2,267, according to the firm’s latest annual accounts filed with Companies House.

Despite this, Landbay’s loss after tax widened to £1.85m from £1.74m, which it said was a result of ongoing investment in operations and technology and a 50 per cent increase in its headcount.

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Landbay, which is headed up by founder John Goodall (pictured), said it expects to gradually move towards profitability with improving cash generation.

“The overall BTL market gross lending reduced slightly down at around £36bn in 2017 (2016: £40bn), however the specialist lending market within this grew as regulatory and taxation changes played into the hands of specialist lenders driving additional lending from portfolio landlords,” the firm said.

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The value of Landbay’s loanbook increased to £49m from £9.4m in 2016.

The company’s directors were paid a total of £336,353 last year, up from £225,750 in 2016, with the highest-paid director receiving £126,002 compared with £82,500 the year before.

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