VPC thrives as P2P wind down continues
VPC Specialty Lending returned 19.54 per cent to investors between 17 March 2015 and 30 April 2019, with declared dividends of 27.5p.
According to its latest investor presentation, the investment trust has benefited from its gradual shift away from peer-to-peer lending and towards balance sheet loans.
Read more: VPC to use share buybacks to tackle trust discount
VPC began repositioning its portfolio in the third quarter of 2016, and the transition to balance sheet investments was substantially completed by the end of 2017. In 2018, VPC’s balance sheet investments generated a 13.32 per cent gross revenue return for the company.
Just three per cent of VPC’s existing portfolio is now invested P2P platforms, with the majority of this invested in securitisations from US-based consumer lender Avant. The remaining 0.77 per cent is invested in Funding Circle Europe. All of these investments are set to end by the third quarter of 2020.
Read more: VPC Specialty Lending’s NAV hits six-month high
“The company continues to see the securitisation investments and marketplace loan portfolios wind down as monthly distributions are received by the company and the underlying loans in these investments have a weighted average remaining life of 17 months,” said VPC in the investor presentation.
“[We] expect the impact on the NAV from the continued wind down of the securitisation investments and marketplace loan portfolios to be immaterial.”
As at 30 April 2019, the investment trust had a trailing twelve-month NAV (cum income) return of 9.93 per cent. In the first quarter of the year, VPC returned a NAV (cum income) of 2.8 per cent, which represents an annualised return o 8.40 per cent.
Read more: Woodford offloads stakes in P2PGI and VPC