Finance chief quits at troubled loans firm

WELLESLEY has reported a surge in late repayments as investors shunned the company and its finance chief quit.

The troubled lender – which is backed by aristocrat Graham Wellesley – allows savers to lend their cash to housing developers. It has faced fears about the quality of its loans.

Chief finance officer Alasdair Lenman is leaving the company after only eight months, after being appointed to two nonexecutive director roles. No replacement has yet been lined up.

Wellesley also revealed that losses narrowed to £210,288 in 2016, down from £3.3m for the previous 18 months.

The company saw its investment book climb 33pc to £206m in the first six months of the year but there was no extra growth in the second half after it stopped an advertising campaign.

Meanwhile, total lending rose by only 10pc in the course of the year and only 2pc in the last half. It is a dramatic slump from the 18 months to the end of 2015, when lending rose by 907pc.

Bosses said this was because many short-term loans were being repaid and replaced by new business. The company had made £34.4m loans to customers at the end of 2016 and £15.7m of these were in arrears, rocketing up from £5m a year earlier.

Bosses said the vast majority of these loans would still be repaid and were only temporarily delayed because of circumstances beyond the developers’ control – such as bad weather which held up a building project.

They added that lending was secured against the property being built, meaning any lost cash would be recoverable.