P2P lender targets growth in Scotland

L Lendingcrowd experiences record month and boosts management team

year look to win even more business in Scotland and across the UK”.

The lender was set up by Lunn and serial entrepreneur Bill Dobbie, who holds the role of chairman and brings experience from businesses including Glasgow-based web hosting and cloud computing group Iomart, online dating site Cupid and IT and managed services firm Coretx.

Lendingcrowd also has more than 3,000 investors and said that in the last 12 months it has made “significant strides” in its growth. Milestones include gaining full FCA authorisation in November, launching its Lendingcrowd Growth ISA earlier this year and partnering with Scottish Enterprise to lend to Scottish SMES. The latter agreed investment of £2.75m through the Scottish Investment Bank on Lendingcrowd’s platform in a bid to stimulate loans of up to £35m for SMES based in Scotland.

Lendingcrowdalsocompleted its first external equity raise totalling £1.5m coordinated by angel syndicate Equity Gap. It has also worked with Edinburgh-based craft gin firm Pickering’s, and in 2015 helped food delivery specialist Diet Chef complete “one of the biggest ever” peer-to-business deals seen in the UK in a £1.5m debt finance transaction. Steel giant Tata has taken a big step to merging with German firm Thyssenkrupp in a move which could lead to thousands of job losses. A memorandum of understanding has been signed although the tie-up will not be completed for another year.

Hans Fisher, chief executive of Tata Steel Europe, said there would be potential job losses of 2,000, split between the two companies, although parts of the business could be sold once the deal is finalised, leading to more jobs leaving the company.

The jobs initially affected will be in sales and marketing, where the two companies see the best opportunities to make savings.

Unions gave a cautious welcome to the merger announcement but warned they would fight any compulsory redundancies.

Merger talks started around 18 months ago after Tata decided not to sell its UK steel business, but were held up as the Indian conglomerate sought approval from workers for pension changes.