|
|
Post by chrismellish on Sept 5, 2023 16:29:24 GMT
The thing that always grinded my gears was how close the "pivot" was to the timing of the seedrs fundraise. That to me felt egregious - raising under one business case - but ultimately using the funds for another; and marketing that raise to the retail investors while pulling the trigger on shutting new loans that could have been written at higher rates. They could have created a new book instance or a series - a "gbba 3/4/5" if you like, and let existing investors have priority access, while closing the old book to repayment/redemption only. In the meantime, the new loans Assetz could have been writing at these rates for the past 6 months; golly gee lets just leave that to crowdproperty and loanpad. I'm raising no accusations - it just feels like a duping. It being that close to fundraising first caused me to wonder if the provision fund had run out of money to ring fence due to an unanticipated credit event. But the reported balance since then remains positive so I don't think it's that. Another possibility is that AC couldn't meet forward funding commitments forcing the timing, but again I would have expected that to have been more gracefully handled by a suspension of capital repayments until the forward funding commitments were met with the market then opening again.
|
|
warn
Member of DD Central
Curmudgeon
Posts: 636 
Likes: 658
|
Post by warn on Sept 5, 2023 17:42:44 GMT
...Another possibility is that AC couldn't meet forward funding commitments forcing the timing, but again I would have expected that to have been more gracefully handled by a suspension of capital repayments until the forward funding commitments were met with the market then opening again. They did ring around a bit asking some lenders if they'd like to partake in underwriting opportunities. No idea how many took them up on that.
|
|
|
|
Post by bob2010 on Sept 5, 2023 22:25:45 GMT
What makes you think that AC won't go into administration once it has taken as much as it can out of investors, no matter what investors do or don't do? What makes you think you are going to get 100% capital back? To get 100% you need the vast majority of loans to be repaid and AC not to take costly fees chasing the non payers, however they already taking high fees chasing these loans. If AC don't decide to go into administration after it has got as much as it can (otherwise why front load the fees) I think they will find new and innovative ways to gain more fees from investors capital, after all they pretty much have all the interest now. I am only guessing in what I say, albeit having chatted to a couple of others who have more recently left, but I think AC had "no choice" but to front load the fees. Take this with a pinch of salt as it's just a guess but what I think happened is that they ran out of cash / were going to fall below regulatory minimum reserves back when they shuttered retail lending which is what forced their hand. Allegedly they haven't been lending very much via the institutions, so are more or less funded via the income and fee from the retail book and the historic institutional loans, which would make them dependent on this fee to keep the lights on. I suspect that when they originally set out the tapering of the fee that they expected lending volumes to have increased by now but that this hasn't happened. My fear for lenders would be if the fee has been used to fund a pivot of the business that hasn't worked out, leaving the loan book with the same future recovery costs but with that much less to pay for it, and a business that ends up either limping on or in administration anyway. It will be interesting to see if they extend the fee again. After re-reading the March 2023 bulletin, it's clear that the new Assetz Capital Limited company is primarily set up for institutional lenders and is shifting its focus towards institutional funding. If the fees we retail lenders are being charged are used to support this new business direction, then surely it conflicts with the FCA's principles on transparency and customer interests, not to mention a range of other FCA rules.
|
|
|
|
Post by chrismellish on Sept 6, 2023 6:46:42 GMT
...Another possibility is that AC couldn't meet forward funding commitments forcing the timing, but again I would have expected that to have been more gracefully handled by a suspension of capital repayments until the forward funding commitments were met with the market then opening again. They did ring around a bit asking some lenders if they'd like to partake in underwriting opportunities. No idea how many took them up on that. Possibly not enough. Perhaps then its some combination of all the above. The outlook must have been pretty dire for them to give up on retail completely though, historically it had always been easier to create a USP in the market with retail, and whilst it carried a lot of overheads the margins were generally higher. You can see what they're switching to with the recent noise they've been making about a new partnership with Atom Bank. But the announcement is for AC acting as an introducer rather than lender. So a broker will approach AC with a potential borrower, AC will do a little due diligence then just pass the lead over to Atom Bank, and split the fee with the broker. Not sure how attractive AC will be able to make their offering vs others offering the same loans from Atom, or eventually (you'd have to assume) Atom offering those loans directly...
|
|
|
|
Post by garreh on Sept 6, 2023 12:13:03 GMT
They did ring around a bit asking some lenders if they'd like to partake in underwriting opportunities. No idea how many took them up on that. Possibly not enough. Perhaps then its some combination of all the above. The outlook must have been pretty dire for them to give up on retail completely though, historically it had always been easier to create a USP in the market with retail, and whilst it carried a lot of overheads the margins were generally higher. You can see what they're switching to with the recent noise they've been making about a new partnership with Atom Bank. But the announcement is for AC acting as an introducer rather than lender. So a broker will approach AC with a potential borrower, AC will do a little due diligence then just pass the lead over to Atom Bank, and split the fee with the broker. Not sure how attractive AC will be able to make their offering vs others offering the same loans from Atom, or eventually (you'd have to assume) Atom offering those loans directly... If this is AC pivot direction, being essentially a vetting company, then it's absolutely essential that the retail wind-down is done with maximum efficiency and minimal to no financial setbacks. Otherwise, why would anyone choose to engage a company for conducting due diligence on their own borrowers when they have a track record of incompetence and substantial financial losses? I suppose that offers a faint ray of optimism.
|
|
|
|
Post by oliveau on Sept 26, 2023 11:15:08 GMT
How much longer do FOS intend to faff about with complaints?
E-mail yesterday to say that they STILL have not allocated a case handler. This will end up like BLN/TC complaints - kicked into the long grass as the platform enters into administration tp avoid paying out.
I've had bugger all in interest over the last few months - all taken by fees. At least I'm down to the last £13k on the platform from £80k.
|
|
|
|
Post by oliveau on Sept 26, 2023 11:22:21 GMT
But I don't understand (seriously I do not) how being required to handle a FEW complaints (presumably assuming they can't win against those) by a mere handful of customers against the thousands of unhappy (but effectively 'queued') customers could threaten the viability of the operation? So come on you expert, tell me how it's done that complaints cause the wheels to fall off this well-oiled money chiseling whereby we now pay them to do what the borrowers have already paid them for? What is the synopsis of 'The Road to Aministartion' movie (with Hope and Crosby)? On TC it was one big investor who won a complaint that was going to cost a lot, several large investments to be refunded with interest, and TC (I think) thought they ought to compensate everyone in those loans (and/or other lenders in those loans would complain once they became aware of the judgement) which would have been a very substantial amount. The retail platforms themselves don't retain much funds so TC couldn't honour it's commitments and pay the FOS settlement so went into administration. They had also carefully hived off the institutional investors part of the platform, which is still running and I assume profitable. I don't know what funds the part of Assetz that deals with the retail lending side has, but likely not as much as you might think for 'this well-oiled money chiseling....'. The company structure of these entities is a bit beyond me! Ah yes, but did said big lender actually get paid out by TC??
|
|
rscal
Posts: 985
Likes: 537
|
Post by rscal on Sept 26, 2023 12:48:07 GMT
How much longer do FOS intend to faff about with complaints? E-mail yesterday to say that they STILL have not allocated a case handler. This will end up like BLN/TC complaints - kicked into the long grass as the platform enters into administration tp avoid paying out. I've had bugger all in interest over the last few months - all taken by fees. At least I'm down to the last £13k on the platform from £80k. Just FYI, I had contacts 12/6, 24/7 and 4/9 (complained about 20/2) They do say: 26/10: Am finally contacted by a FOS Investigator (we are 'off'..) 
|
|
mikes1531
Member of DD Central
Posts: 6,453
Likes: 2,320
|
Post by mikes1531 on Oct 8, 2023 18:16:34 GMT
On TC it was one big investor who won a complaint that was going to cost a lot, several large investments to be refunded with interest, and TC (I think) thought they ought to compensate everyone in those loans (and/or other lenders in those loans would complain once they became aware of the judgement) which would have been a very substantial amount. The retail platforms themselves don't retain much funds so TC couldn't honour it's commitments and pay the FOS settlement so went into administration. They had also carefully hived off the institutional investors part of the platform, which is still running and I assume profitable. I don't know what funds the part of Assetz that deals with the retail lending side has, but likely not as much as you might think for 'this well-oiled money chiseling....'. The company structure of these entities is a bit beyond me! Ah yes, but did said big lender actually get paid out by TC?? Where would a judgement resulting from an upheld FOS complaint fall in the settlement priority order of an administration? I can't remember if TC investors were lenders in loans secured by borrowers' assets or whether they simply were lending to TC itself. If the former, then ISTM that the complaining investor would be well down in the claim queue. If the latter, then the FOS judgement probably would rank alongside other investors' claims and produce a much better result for the said investor..
|
|
|
|
Post by crabbyoldgit on Oct 8, 2023 19:17:16 GMT
I was not involved in TC however my impression of this situation is that the big investor forced them into administration ending an orderly wind down. This just means a big pay day for the administration company and in the two conditions above a small proportion or a larger proportion of the bugger all left after the feeding frenzy for the investor in question. Of course any share of bugger all is bugger all.
|
|
ilmoro
Member of DD Central
'Wondering which of the bu***rs to blame, and watching for pigs on the wing.' - Pink Floyd
Posts: 11,315
Likes: 11,523
|
Post by ilmoro on Oct 8, 2023 20:35:36 GMT
All the relevant details are in the admin reports
1. BLN upheld the lenders complaint not FOS and decided it needed to repay lenders but didnt have sufficient cash £388k, couldnt secure parent support, so entered admin
2. There were other complaints to FOS, relating to other issues I assume, 4 of which were upheld adding to bill, & with others potentially likely.
3. No payments were made to any complainants ... the original complainants are admitted unsecured creditors, the FOS ones havent been admitted but are likely to be so ... all lenders are considered contingent creditors anyway.
Net result complainants are no better positioned than normal lenders other than they dont have to prove creditors position.
|
|
|
|
Post by oliveau on Nov 2, 2023 11:35:44 GMT
Finally FOS has appointed a case officer. Despite a very long wait for this to happen I am nevertheless very encouraged by the recommendations that the case officer has made to AC. Watch this space......
|
|
p2pfan
Member of DD Central
Full-Time Investor
Posts: 781 
Likes: 889
|
Post by p2pfan on Nov 2, 2023 12:28:46 GMT
Finally FOS has appointed a case officer. Despite a very long wait for this to happen I am nevertheless very encouraged by the recommendations that the case officer has made to AC. Watch this space...... Stick in there my friend. You will be successful, I hope. The FOS has found in my favour against the miscreants that are AC. The FOS have surmised that AC mislead and took advantage of us. However, AC have challenged the FOS's decision and are invariably dragging out matters as long as possible so they can unethically continue to take as much money from us as possible before they put themselves into administration and then their staff disappear into the ether.
|
|
|
|
Post by scepticalinvestor on Nov 2, 2023 12:57:01 GMT
Thank you both for continuing to see this through. My complaint is still in its early stages with the FOS.
|
|
pikestaff
Member of DD Central
Posts: 2,187
Likes: 1,546
|
Post by pikestaff on Nov 2, 2023 18:35:05 GMT
Finally FOS has appointed a case officer. Despite a very long wait for this to happen I am nevertheless very encouraged by the recommendations that the case officer has made to AC. Watch this space...... Recommendations? It would be odd for a case officer to make recommendations before considering the case. The email that I got yesterday was just the case officer introducing herself, together with her understanding of my complaint (a fair summary) and "next steps". Which is all I'd expect at this stage.
|
|
