Profitable business

With respect to the profit/loss for 2014, can we not look at the P&L account balance at the end of 2013 and 2014 and tell how well they did via the difference between the two numbers?

Prior to the 2014 accounts, there has only been one set of accounts submitted (2013).

The whole point of the exemptions is that a small or medium sized company does not have to publish the imformation, it is still a statutory requirement that they must be prepared, for other purposes such as the shareholders and tax.  Comparison of each years balance of the profit and loss account for each year will give an indication of profitability after tax.  Most provisions and reserves (eg property revaluations, share premium accounts) do not go through the profit and loss account.

As far as I am aware none of the platforms do provide anything similar to a "investors information pack" directly to the lendors, the rationale behind that presumably being you are not investing in the platform.  Whether that is a reasonable or desirable position is something that you have to consider yourself, but it is unlikely that a large institutional investor would invest in any platform without doing considerable detailled due dilligence, including direct access to the books and records and company poilicies of the platform.  (There was discussion some while back that the institutional investors on RS did undertake such DD) 

It is important to remember that investors funds are secured against property assets and not the profitability of SS/Lendy Ltd.

Inevitably, some loans will default; it is the responsibility of SS to ensure that these events are minimal and that the loans are structured so that in the event of default investors funds are substantially mitigated.

Individual investors must also take responsibility for their actions and should, therefore, carefully consider the sums they are willing to commit to particular loans. As far as my own investment in SS is concerned, I constantly review overall strategy and my confidence in a particular loan or borrower.

You are entirely correct CD, and I will suggest to SS that they publish quarterly operating accounts to investors for the purpose of maintaining investor confidence. I am regularly tempted to make suggestions to SS (in addition to those that I do make) which I believe will improve/strengthen the platform; however, I have to remain mindful that it is their business and although I may feel close to this because of my investments via the platform and my personal wish to see them prosper, I am ultimately just a willing "customer".  

I'm a bit of an old timer and have have worked at board level for a FTSE 100 company, for an Internet startup and for a very large non-profit.  While I wouldn't claim to be the most knowledgeable of people on these forums, I would counsel you not to take much notice of a company's published data.  It's quite easy to move items around, to hide both profit and loss, to manipulate assets and liabilities.  Basically, the accounts will show you only what they want you to see.

A different way of looking at profitability is to look at, admittedly rough, income and expenditure model.  littleoldlady said that the model was "lend at 18% then offload the loan and the risk to us at 12%".  In fact, she understates the income.  They also have a 4% arrangement fee and a 2% exit fee.  You can see how Tim explained their model here: SS Business Model

Admittedly, that tells us nothing about overheads, investor commitments, future dividends/equity allocation to directors.  However, it does show that there is plenty in the arrangement and exit fees to cover all aspects of DD, surveys, introduction fees, legal fees etc.  It would be a pretty shoddy company that couldn't make make a profit at that level of margin.

Tim claims that SS have been profitable from day one.  I have to say that seems pretty reasonable to me.  It was brave of Tim to give us that level of detail and, while I doubt it's the same for every single loan, it's a very comfortable starting point.