Relendex sets sights on £100m of institutional money
Relendex is looking to secure £100m of institutional money by the third quarter and to start deploying the new funds by the end of the year, depending on the lockdown restrictions.
Paul Sonabend (pictured), executive chairman of the property-backed peer-to-peer lending platform, said this is to help fund more housebuilding for the nation.
“Combining retail and institutional money on a single platform creates a unique opportunity to allow capital to flow into the housebuilding market in a much more sophisticated structure,” he said.
“It helps provide the funding required to build the hundreds of thousands of homes we all need.
“We don’t just have aspirations for £100m, we want far more than that. £100m should be the beginning point and will go on from there.”
Sonabend added that institutions becoming more interested in P2P platforms is a real milestone for the sector.
“P2P is accepting more institutional money and becoming of age,” he said.
“The institutions can take advantage of the sector the same as the public. P2P is all about the democratisation of savings.”
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Sonabend said during the lockdown, Relendex has still been recruiting more developers and is ahead of schedule in the number that it is signing up.
He added that the lender has been very sensible with its trading during Covid-19 and made a small profit in April.
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“We’ve had to be cautious and in terms of the performance of existing loans, we’ve had sales come through and a small number of people agreeing loans,” Sonabend said.
“Since Anthony [Shayle] joined we’ve identified the first round of potential borrowers and we are working on raising the money.
“We’re very well capitalised. We’re concerned about the future and coming out of lockdown but very excited about what we have to do.
“Of course, we’re affected by the pandemic and its horrible but it’s proving to us how important what we’re doing is.”
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