Wellesley widens losses as it winds down the business
Wellesley saw its losses widen to just over £1m last year, as it discontinued its management fees and begun to wind down the business.
The property lending platform announced in September 2020 that it was restructuring the company, due to liquidity issues amid the pandemic and a challenging regulatory environment.
Wellesley reported a pre-tax loss of £1.028m for the 12 months to 31 December 2020, compared to a pre-tax loss of £400,000 the previous year.
Income from management fees fell from £3.905m in 2019 to £890,000 in 2020, according to annual accounts filed with Companies House.
Last September, Wellesley asked its creditors to back its proposal for a company voluntary arrangement, which was voted through in October 2020.
Founder and chief executive Graham Wellesley said ahead of the vote that a CVA offered an alternative “to an otherwise disorderly wind-down,” warning insolvency would “result in an inferior outcome” for all investors.
Following the passing of the vote, Wellesley discontinued its regulated financial services activities and will operate in the future as an unregulated entity.
Andrew Turnbull (pictured), director and co-founder of Wellesley, told Peer2Peer Finance News last year that Wellesley plans to move to unregulated syndicated property lending with institutional funding.
Wellesley’s latest annual accounts confirmed that the company has no plans to accept retail money again.
The company launched as a peer-to-peer lender in 2013 and later moved into mini-bonds.
It stopped accepting new money into its P2P product in May 2017 and in 2019 said it was shifting its whole focus to ISA-eligible listed bonds that would support property developments.