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Post by davee39 on Mar 12, 2014 20:33:40 GMT
£60k would probably get away, but £600k?
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Post by mrclondon on Mar 12, 2014 22:17:21 GMT
This loan should have marked the transition of FS from an amateurish startup whose foibles can be excused, to a professional player in the market place. The appointment of 2 additional directors over recent months doesn't seem to have sharpened the operation. I'm seriously underwhelmed by today's launch of this loan ... as my bid of just £25 probably shows, somewhat less than the 4 figure sum that I'd indicated to FS a few weeks ago that I might be prepared to consider. As yet I've received no reply to the email I sent this morning regarding this loan , nor to my email yesterday on the recently defaulted loan. There have been 3 separate communications channels deployed today (email, blog, and the loan listing itself) and yet none of them address such fundamental questions as a) Asset security - where are the books to be located during our involvement (country ? type of storage facility ? who is responsible for their safekeeping ? ) Given the loan LTV of 20% is it practical to store the books in two locations so if one half is destroyed we still have the other half as security ? b) Insurance for (e.g.) fire / theft / liquid damage - does it exist ? Can we see the policy ? Are FS to be named as loss payee on the policy ? c) Valuer - how is he/she qualified to make this valuation ? Based in which country ? Insurance for wrong valuation ? d) Underwriting - how do FS intend to raise the £600k ? Are underwriters to be deployed ? Has cashback to lenders bidding more than £x been considered ? e) Secondary market (related to point d) - when will this be in place ? what will the fee structure to be ? f) "Overall Condition is Good" - means what exactly ? FS are asking us to consider significantly increasing our per loan contribution, and yet seem not to appreciate that to do so needs a much greater evaluation of the risks involved on our part.
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mikes1531
Member of DD Central
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Post by mikes1531 on Mar 12, 2014 23:05:51 GMT
There have been 3 separate communications channels deployed today (email, blog, and the loan listing itself) and yet none of them address such fundamental questions as a) Asset security - where are the books to be located during our involvement (country ? type of storage facility ? who is responsible for their safekeeping ? ) b) Insurance for (e.g.) fire / theft / liquid damage - does it exist ? Can we see the policy ? Are FS to be named as loss payee on the policy ? c) Valuer - how is he/she qualified to make this valuation ? Based in which country ? Insurance for wrong valuation ? d) Underwriting - how do FS intend to raise the £600k ? Are underwriters to be deployed ? Has cashback to lenders bidding more than £x been considered ? e) Secondary market (related to point d) - when will this be in place ? what will the fee structure to be ? The above all are valid questions, and I'd also like to see the answers before committing significant funds to this loan. It would be good if FS could allow us to see the valuation report, or perhpas a few relevant pages from it so that we can see what the valuer actually said. (I don't think we need to see a detailed list of the 5000 items and their individual values!) If the valuer were identified, we could form our own opinions of their qualifications. The good news is that, with such a low LTV, the valuation could be off by a considerable factor and the security still would be sufficient though, with such a specialised security, in the hopefully unlikely case of a default it could well take a considerable time to turn it into the cash necessary to pay lenders back. Also, £600k is a rather large amount, so we need some assurance that there is an appropriate amount of value in the security even with the very low LTV. Initially, my biggest concern was what will happen when the 7-day auction/bidding period is over and less than £600k has been committed? Would the deadline be extended? How many times might that happen? I'd worry that any offers I might make would tie up my funds for an extended period while waiting for the total amount to be raised, during which they'd be earning nothing. It would seem that FS need to have someone lined up who is committed to taking whatever portion of the loan is unfunded at some specific point in time -- and we need to know what that time is. That someone could be a traditional underwriter who is expected to offload their share of the loan to other lenders as more lenders can be persuaded to contribute, or it could be someone willing to take a large chunk of the loan for their own account. If FS would be using an underwriter rather than a large investor, then how close are FS to implementing the necessary secondary market? AFAIK, FS never have suggested that they had any plans for a secondary market. Have I missed an announcement? If FS do implement a secondary market for this loan, would they extend this facility to all their outstanding loans? Based on what I've seen at other P2P lenders that do support a secondary market, such a feature is very attractive to lenders and could well be very beneficial to FS.
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Post by mrclondon on Mar 13, 2014 13:35:31 GMT
... then how close are FS to implementing the necessary secondary market? AFAIK, FS never have suggested that they had any plans for a secondary market. Have I missed an announcement? If FS do implement a secondary market for this loan, would they extend this facility to all their outstanding loans? Based on what I've seen at other P2P lenders that do support a secondary market, such a feature is very attractive to lenders and could well be very beneficial to FS. I'm tending to assume that all P2x platforms that don't currently have a secondary market will introduce one shortly to facilitate the cooling off period required by the FCA for new lenders on the platform (presumably with fee free sales for n days after the first investment).
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debeast
(o)(o)
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Post by debeast on Mar 14, 2014 8:31:23 GMT
They haven't even fixed the exisiting bugs in their site . I don't mind committing play money to them but serious money is not going to happen unless something radically changes with their tech & comms strategies
just my 2c
/beastie
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bugs4me
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Post by bugs4me on Mar 14, 2014 9:38:29 GMT
There have been 3 separate communications channels deployed today (email, blog, and the loan listing itself) and yet none of them address such fundamental questions as a) Asset security - where are the books to be located during our involvement (country ? type of storage facility ? who is responsible for their safekeeping ? ) Given the loan LTV of 20% is it practical to store the books in two locations so if one half is destroyed we still have the other half as security ? b) Insurance for (e.g.) fire / theft / liquid damage - does it exist ? Can we see the policy ? Are FS to be named as loss payee on the policy ? c) Valuer - how is he/she qualified to make this valuation ? Based in which country ? Insurance for wrong valuation ? d) Underwriting - how do FS intend to raise the £600k ? Are underwriters to be deployed ? Has cashback to lenders bidding more than £x been considered ? e) Secondary market (related to point d) - when will this be in place ? what will the fee structure to be ? f) "Overall Condition is Good" - means what exactly ? FS are asking us to consider significantly increasing our per loan contribution, and yet seem not to appreciate that to do so needs a much greater evaluation of the risks involved on our part. I'm confident that you would have posted the FS reply but just in case - has there been any response as these are highly relevant questions considering the amount involved.
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Post by mrclondon on Mar 14, 2014 14:01:29 GMT
I'm confident that you would have posted the FS reply but just in case - has there been any response as these are highly relevant questions considering the amount involved. Just an acknowledgement of a subsequent email I sent pointing them at this thread.
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bugs4me
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Post by bugs4me on Mar 14, 2014 14:10:44 GMT
I'm confident that you would have posted the FS reply but just in case - has there been any response as these are highly relevant questions considering the amount involved. Just an acknowledgement of a subsequent email I sent pointing them at this thread. Thank you
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mikes1531
Member of DD Central
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Post by mikes1531 on Mar 14, 2014 16:10:12 GMT
I'm confident that you would have posted the FS reply but just in case - has there been any response as these are highly relevant questions considering the amount involved. Just an acknowledgement of a subsequent email I sent pointing them at this thread. In case people haven't noticed -- and I only noticed accidentally -- the PDF referenced on the loan page has been updated. (Either that, or we missed the fact that it was a 3-page document in the first place.) The later pages indicate who made the valuation, and show three example items from the collection along with auction results of the same or comparable items. There's also info regarding the storage of the collection, insurance arrangements, etc. I'm really surprised FS haven't brought this to our attention themselves. The main outstanding question would appear to be what is going to happen at the end of the 7-day bidding period if the loan isn't completely funded by then. This is a critical question, as I can't be the only potential lender who's reluctant to tie up funds for an indefinite period of no earnings by making an offer on this loan when there's no assurance at all that this loan will actually happen. I'm honestly surprised that anyone would make an offer under these circumstances.
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bugs4me
Member of DD Central
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Post by bugs4me on Mar 14, 2014 16:14:04 GMT
Just an acknowledgement of a subsequent email I sent pointing them at this thread. In case people haven't noticed -- and I only noticed accidentally -- the PDF referenced on the loan page has been updated. (Either that, or we missed the fact that it was a 3-page document in the first place.) The later pages indicate who made the valuation, and show three example items from the collection along with auction results of the same or comparable items. There's also info regarding the storage of the collection, insurance arrangements, etc. I'm really surprised FS haven't brought this to our attention themselves. The main outstanding question would appear to be what is going to happen at the end of the 7-day bidding period if the loan isn't completely funded by then. This is a critical question, as I can't be the only potential lender who's reluctant to tie up funds for an indefinite period of no earnings by making an offer on this loan when there's no assurance at all that this loan will actually happen. I'm honestly surprised that anyone would make an offer under these circumstances. Originally it was only the first page so we didn't miss anything. Like you I'm surprised this information hasn't been released on the forum.
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Post by fundingsecure on Mar 14, 2014 16:18:18 GMT
Thank you for your comments. An email has gone out to all our savers advising that further details of the loan are now available on the website.
Based on emails received from savers last month regarding a loan of this size, we are confident that we can fill this loan. As with large loans on other peer-to-peer platforms, we anticipate the usual rush towards the end of the period.
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alison
Member of DD Central
Sanctuary!!
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Post by alison on Mar 14, 2014 16:21:17 GMT
In case people haven't noticed -- and I only noticed accidentally -- the PDF referenced on the loan page has been updated. (Either that, or we missed the fact that it was a 3-page document in the first place.) The later pages indicate who made the valuation, and show three example items from the collection along with auction results of the same or comparable items. There's also info regarding the storage of the collection, insurance arrangements, etc. I'm really surprised FS haven't brought this to our attention themselves. The main outstanding question would appear to be what is going to happen at the end of the 7-day bidding period if the loan isn't completely funded by then. This is a critical question, as I can't be the only potential lender who's reluctant to tie up funds for an indefinite period of no earnings by making an offer on this loan when there's no assurance at all that this loan will actually happen. I'm honestly surprised that anyone would make an offer under these circumstances. Originally it was only the first page so we didn't miss anything. Like you I'm surprised this information hasn't been released on the forum. There was a covering email sent out at 15.30 today. It also pointed out that they are introducing "shadow bids" for this loan - min £10k.
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mikes1531
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Post by mikes1531 on Mar 14, 2014 20:53:30 GMT
Originally it was only the first page so we didn't miss anything. Like you I'm surprised this information hasn't been released on the forum. There was a covering email sent out at 15.30 today. It also pointed out that they are introducing "shadow bids" for this loan - min £10k. Thanks for the info. I hadn't seen the email earlier, but I did receive it. I'd be happy to place a 'shadow' bid, but I'm not prepared to put £10k into a single loan, so I guess all I can do is just watch and wait until enough more bids come in that I'm convinced the loan will be fully funded. Inasmuch as it's less than 5% funded at the moment, that may take a while. And then hope to be able to place a bid before it fills completely.
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Post by mrclondon on Mar 14, 2014 21:42:43 GMT
I'd be happy to place a 'shadow' bid, but I'm not prepared to put £10k into a single loan, so I guess all I can do is just watch and wait until enough more bids come in that I'm convinced the loan will be fully funded. Inasmuch as it's less than 5% funded at the moment, that may take a while. And then hope to be able to place a bid before it fills completely. Ditto. In the meanime my initial due-dillegence has thrown up a couple of minor observations: google maps doesn't recognise the address of the storage facility given in their website footer but gves an approximate position (of a quaint countryside road) and I'm still non the wiser as to why the American is qualified to value Italian antique books, but at least the valuation has been validated to some extent in the UK.
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wysiati
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Post by wysiati on Mar 14, 2014 22:29:20 GMT
Based on emails received from savers last month regarding a loan of this size, we are confident that we can fill this loan. Then presumably there was no need for one of your Directors to use his access to the private ThinCats forum this evening, as has been noted there, to advertise and provide a link to the deal. A bit shabby of you but then I suppose every little helps.
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