rogerbu
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Post by rogerbu on Apr 22, 2016 10:59:02 GMT
I had the opportunity to visit SS's offices in Southsea yesterday and met both Co-founding Directors (Liam & Tim). I had a useful longer discussion with Liam.
These are new premises for SS having de-camped from the Isle of Wight recently, the offices are based in a nice old Victorian? building. The directors and worker bees are all housed in a large lower ground open office that has clearly been nicely renovated and looks to be is a pleasant working environment. There is obviously still much work to be done to titivate the older parts of the building.
For historical reasons, the business appears to operate with Lendy getting and managing all the loans, whilst Saving Stream manages all investors and their investments. However, the two teams are only opposite each other across the large working area, so there appeared to be easy communication between the two.
The IT development guy also works in the same environment, but I didn't have time to chat with him.
Liam appeared to be very comfortable with SS's progress so far and he is bullish about future prospects. I gained the impression that he feels that there is sufficient opportunity out there to allow SS to continue to grow profitably.
From the conversation I understood that the directors (at least) are also investors via SS, so at least some of their agendas' align with us investors.
We discussed how Lendy gains loans via brokers and how the brokers reputation and fees are at risk if one of their loans goes bad. Again alignment of interest.
Loan acquisition, ongoing management and completion seems to be managed actively by the Bus Dev team.
I expressed the view that I saw SS, MT & AR in the same light, as all three communicate well and listen to their investors. With all three being my preferred platforms. Liam was not impressed that I equated SS with MT & AR as they are both smaller and younger platforms, but I hopefully convinced him that I was complementing SS on the confidence they give their investors.
Liam has given his blessing to my making this report.
Overall, I came away feeling confident that Lendy/Savingstream is being run efficiently, with little resource fat. The people seemed knowledgeable, cheerful and committed. I will be happy to increase my use of SS as loans become available.
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cooling_dude
Bye Bye's for the PPI
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Post by cooling_dude on Apr 22, 2016 11:06:22 GMT
I had the opportunity to visit SS's offices in Southsea yesterday and met both Co-founding Directors (Liam & Tim). I had a useful longer discussion with Liam. ...... Overall, I came away feeling confident that Lendy/Savingstream is being run efficiently, with little resource fat. The people seemed knowledgeable, cheerful and committed. I will be happy to increase my use of SS as loans become available. That's awsome; thank you for this, it is alway nice to see an investor go out of their way to keep an eye on the platform  The only part of your report that I have a slight concern is... That's great to know; it certainly shows they have faith in their own system. However, I hope they have to go through the exact same process as us to invest, and not be able to cherry pick good investments on the SM.
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mikeh
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Post by mikeh on Apr 22, 2016 11:06:26 GMT
Interesting, Thanks. Roughly how many are working there in total?
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Post by ladywhitenap on Apr 22, 2016 11:06:35 GMT
Thanks Roger for taking the time to report back. All sounds positive. I wish they would communicate a bit more and consistently but hey ho, they are not the only platform that attract that feeling in me.
Forgive my ignorance but struggling to decode AR?
LW
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cooling_dude
Bye Bye's for the PPI
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Post by cooling_dude on Apr 22, 2016 11:10:18 GMT
Thanks Roger for taking the time to report back. All sounds positive. I wish they would communicate a bit more and consistently but hey ho, they are not the only platform that attract that feeling in me. Forgive my ignorance but struggling to decode AR? LW I think some users used to refer to ablrate as AR as well as ABL, before ablrate themselves settled on ABL.
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littleoldlady
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Running down all platforms due to age
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Post by littleoldlady on Apr 22, 2016 11:10:42 GMT
Thanks Roger for taking the time to report back. All sounds positive. I wish they would communicate a bit more and consistently but hey ho, they are not the only platform that attract that feeling in me. Forgive my ignorance but struggling to decode AR? LW If he means Archover I do not agree that they are comparable with SS & MT (who are similar). Archover sit at a rather different position on the risk:reward spectrum IMO. Lower on both. If he means Ablrate again quite different from SS & MT - mainly aircraft leasing.
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Post by ladywhitenap on Apr 22, 2016 11:13:21 GMT
Ah! Thanks ABL makes more sense and interesting to see that my triad of preferred platforms is the same as Rogers.
LW
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SteveT
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Post by SteveT on Apr 22, 2016 11:22:59 GMT
Thanks Roger for taking the time to report back. All sounds positive. I wish they would communicate a bit more and consistently but hey ho, they are not the only platform that attract that feeling in me. Forgive my ignorance but struggling to decode AR? LW If he means Archover I do not agree that they are comparable with SS & MT (who are similar). Archover sit at a rather different position on the risk:reward spectrum IMO. Lower on both. If he means Ablrate again quite different from SS & MT - mainly aircraft leasing. Nope, these days Ablrate are very much in the same sort of space as SS and MT, ie. asset-backed loans albeit on a wider range of assets than SS's property/land-only approach to date. Very few of their recent loans have been on aircraft (more's the pity).
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rogerbu
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Post by rogerbu on Apr 22, 2016 11:45:37 GMT
Interesting, Thanks. Roughly how many are working there in total? I would estimate 12 -16. Probably not all FTE
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rogerbu
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Post by rogerbu on Apr 22, 2016 11:46:24 GMT
Thanks Roger for taking the time to report back. All sounds positive. I wish they would communicate a bit more and consistently but hey ho, they are not the only platform that attract that feeling in me. Forgive my ignorance but struggling to decode AR? LW Ablerate
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rogerbu
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Post by rogerbu on Apr 22, 2016 11:47:13 GMT
Thanks Roger for taking the time to report back. All sounds positive. I wish they would communicate a bit more and consistently but hey ho, they are not the only platform that attract that feeling in me. Forgive my ignorance but struggling to decode AR? LW I think some users used to refer to ablrate as AR as well as ABL, before ablrate themselves settled on ABL. Smack wrist accepted 
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rogerbu
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Post by rogerbu on Apr 22, 2016 11:51:50 GMT
Thanks Roger for taking the time to report back. All sounds positive. I wish they would communicate a bit more and consistently but hey ho, they are not the only platform that attract that feeling in me. Forgive my ignorance but struggling to decode AR? LW I made the point to Liam that my biggest complaint of them would be patchy communication. They are better than some platforms, but not the best.
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investibod
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Post by investibod on Apr 22, 2016 12:18:49 GMT
Thanks Roger for taking the time to report back. All sounds positive. I wish they would communicate a bit more and consistently but hey ho, they are not the only platform that attract that feeling in me. Forgive my ignorance but struggling to decode AR? LW I made the point to Liam that my biggest complaint of them would be patchy communication. They are better than some platforms, but not the best. I had a phone call from SS out of the blue yesterday, just to ask how I was getting on and if I had any issues or suggestions. Quite a nice thing to do and something I guess is only feasible when there is not too rapid a growth of investors. I was a bit on the hop having not prepared and questions, but I did point out that the level of documentation provided by SS if not up to the same standards as some other platforms. f I had had a bit more time to think, I might have said communications generally. However, it is nice to be asked.
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sam i am
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Post by sam i am on Apr 22, 2016 13:19:36 GMT
I had the opportunity to visit SS's offices in Southsea yesterday and met both Co-founding Directors (Liam & Tim). I had a useful longer discussion with Liam. ...... Overall, I came away feeling confident that Lendy/Savingstream is being run efficiently, with little resource fat. The people seemed knowledgeable, cheerful and committed. I will be happy to increase my use of SS as loans become available. That's awsome; thank you for this, it is alway nice to see an investor go out of their way to keep an eye on the platform The only part of your report that I have a slight concern is... That's great to know; it certainly shows they have faith in their own system. However, I hope they have to go through the exact same process as us to invest, and not be able to cherry pick good investments on the SM. ...or dump loans on the SM that are in danger of defaulting. This is where there is the greatest risk of information asymmetry. If directors are to invest in the loans then I would prefer to see x% or £x in each loan on a 'buy and hold to payback' basis. Edit: ... and even better for this to be on a 'first loss' basis as with Broadoak investment in MT loans
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rogerbu
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Post by rogerbu on Apr 22, 2016 14:46:42 GMT
Thanks for the report, rogerbu , well done. Just out of curiosity, how did your SS visit come about? Did you request it? I wonder if savingstream is planning to hold a lender's meeting at the new HQ sometime soon for more general attendance. SS are looking at having a promotional video produced, as I am local to Portsmouth, I was asked whether I would be interviewed. (No one is allowed to laugh at me when/if it finally appears  ) savingstream I would agree that an onsite 'lender' day would be good for your PR, however I could understand SS delaying it until the premises titivation was completed.
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