Building peer-to-peer portfolio
GLI Finance Ltd, (GLIF) (GLIF) has made seven investments, totalling over £4m, in peer-to-peer and SME lending platforms (bringing its total to 10). These vehicles provide optionality on lending growth and offer a unique opportunity for equity investors to access these high-growth markets. The proposed separation of GLIF’s US CLO book will concentrate the business in this area. GLIF also announced its Q413 dividend of 1.25p, annual yield of c 10% and NAV of 50.0p.
NAV and dividend
As expected, the dividend for Q413 was 1.25p, the same as previous quarters. The NAV at end Q413 was 50.0p against 51.8p end Q313. About half of this 3.5% drop was the strengthening of sterling against the US dollar (end Q3 $1.62/£ vs end Q4 $1.65/£) affecting the dollar loans primarily held in the CLO. We have also cut estimates for continued high levels of early repayments.
Portfolio investments
GLIF has confirmed it is preparing to transfer the CLO portfolio, the core of the current business, into a separately listed vehicle with a potential offering in H114. GLIF also announced modest investments across a range of SME financing vehicles. These include: (i) TradeRiver Finance (£0.8m equity, £2m funding), UK trade finance; (ii) Finpoint UK (£1.25m), platform for institutional buyers of SME loans; (iii) Proplend (£1m), commercial property peer-to-peer platform; (iv) Raiseworks ($1.5m), US SME peer-to-peer lender, first loans expected Q214; (v) Sancus, Jersey-based offshore SME lender – high net worth investors targeted; (vi) Dansk Faktura Børs, Danish invoice discounter; and (vii) CrowdShed.
The investment in BMS is reported to be “trading successfully” and the last accounts saw an uplift in valuation, which GLIF expects to be recur. Investments in Platform Black (UK invoice financing) and FundingKnight (UK peer-to-peer SMEs) are progressing as expected.
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