9th Jun 2016 15:33
LONDON (Alliance News) - London-listed P2P Global Investments PLC on Thursday named Mahnaz Safa, managing director for corporate and investment banking in EMEA at Citigroup, as an independent non-executive director, strengthening the board at a time of "heightened" regulatory scrutiny for peer-to-peer lenders and other online marketplace lenders.
The new board director will also become a member of P2P's audit and valuation, management engagement and remuneration and nomination committees. She takes on the new role at the London-listed investment trust, which invests in loans originated through online peer-to-peer platforms, from Friday this week.
Safa, who joined Citi in 2013 after 19 years at Swiss bank UBS, where she headed the EMEA debt capital markets business, has experience of the peer-to-peer lending sector.
She used to be on the British Business Bank's investment committee, helping to allocate capital to non-traditional lenders to smaller companies. Such lenders included peer-to-peer platforms.
Moreover, Safa has advised new platforms for working capital finance and is an investor in start-ups in the FinTech space, P2P said.
"Mahnaz has more than 20 years' experience in finance and I know she will bring to the board a powerful mix of knowledge and experience," Chairman Stuart Cruickshank said in a statement.
Cruickshank's comments coincided with P2P's annual meeting of shareholders, at which the chairman said the underlying credit performance of P2P's portfolio has been stable and remains within board expectations.
"The majority of the company's exposure is in prime consumer loans, the performance of which is linked to the general macroeconomic conditions. With a favourable employment market, increased house prices over the past five years, and improved consumer affordability, consumers' creditworthiness in our markets remains strong," Cruickshank said.
P2P, which paid a total dividend of 59.2p per ordinary share in 2015, meaning the shares yielded 6.12% on the average net asset value for the year. Both the board and the investment manager are confident of P2P's ability to continue to deliver its target dividend yield over the next 12 months, Cruickshank said.
He said a share buyback is not on the cards, following "careful consideration" of the matter. While a buyback would deliver a "one-off accretion" to shareholders, the chairman said "it would also mean forgoing the multi-year opportunities we see in deepening our relationships with platforms at a time when other, flightier, investors are pulling back".
"This is a classic example of weighing up the short term versus the long term. Our opinion is that shareholders' interests, at this time, are best served by implementing the company's existing strategy," Cruickshank said.
The industry was rocked in May when San Francisco-based Lending Club, widely seen as the market leader, announced the departure of former chief executive Renaud Laplanche, after a review resulted in allegations of loan mis-selling. At the time the scandal broker, P2P said its manager was tracking carefully developments
"Market place lending is an industry which is still, relatively speaking, in its infancy. Temporary setbacks will occur. But the medium and long term potential remains very compelling and is transformative for society, lenders and borrowers alike," P2P's Cruickshank said on Thursday.
Shares in P2P closed down 1.5% at 850.00 pence Thursday.
By Samuel Agini; [email protected]; @samuelagini
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