Shojin sets £10m fundraise target and plots future IPO
Shojin Property Partners’ chief executive has revealed more details of the platform’s upcoming fundraise and longer-term plans for a stock market float or potential buyout.
Speaking at the P2P Investing Summit, a virtual event hosted by Peer2Peer Finance News and AngelNews, Jatin Ondhia (pictured) said the property investment platform is preparing to raise £10m which will be invested in origination, underwriting, marketing and recruitment.
The platform plans to raise £3.5m from investors, convert £1.7m through the future fund and £5m through private placement from large investments.
Ondhia said Shojin Property Partners will use the funds for operating costs, marketing spend, investor engagement, attracting more investors and recruiting three or four staff members for its origination team over the next nine months, ready for bringing in deals from abroad.
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“We are lucky enough to always have focused on part of the market that’s very lucrative,” he said. “Margins are very good and we’re in the least competitive space so we generate good profits on each project and continue to grow that.
“We will be doing a lot of recruitment and beefing up our origination team. The other big elements are with our international teams based in Hong Kong, India and East Africa. We won’t be originating deals there for the next 18 months but are getting the foundations in place to be able to originate in those countries in a similar way as we are here.
“Finally, we’ll be earmarking about £4m or so for underwriting new deals, one of biggest issues in crowdfunding world is your project might fund in couple days or weeks. We need to make sure have the money in for the day of completion to pay the borrower and then continue to allow investors to invest in it. It’s a little like a shop buying goods for the shelves.”
Looking further ahead, Ondhia said he saw the platform going public or being bought out in three years’ time.
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“We did a fundraise three years ago and hit a whole number of milestones, this will provide an ample runway,” he said.
“The next stage is an initial public offering or potentially being bought out by one of our US counterparts, very high level discussions have started. A lot want to break into UK market in due course.”
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