12:24 pm, June 20, 2024
Startline Motor Finance has floated around three-quarters of its existing assets under management on the London Stock Exchange in a £450m securitisation move.
Securitisation is the pooling of various types of contractual debt with tradeable shares in that pool then sold to investors. Today’s announcement follows a £292m securitisation carried out in late 2021.
Startline CEO Paul Burgess said: ‘The new securitisation attracted a broad and diverse pool of high-quality international investors and was significantly oversubscribed, which is something of a rarity and a testament to the quality of business that the team here in Glasgow is writing.
‘This is a strategy designed to help us make more efficient use of our capital and diversify our funding.
‘In the future, we plan to carry out further regular securitisations and also potentially access mezzanine funding [a type of financing that sits between senior debt and equity in a company’s capital structure].
‘It will give us the right mix to continue to expand, we believe.’
The securitisation programme, which is listed under the name Saatus, sees the motor finance firm also maintaining its ongoing funding relationship with global bank J.P. Morgan.
Burgess added that Startline had been investing heavily in technology, with new systems including a sophisticated business portal for dealers, biometric e-Sign to enable new credit agreements to be processed more quickly and efficiently, plus a range of AI-style robotic process automations.
‘There also continues to be a strong investment by the leadership team in employee engagement and this has resulted in us being listed as ‘’One to Watch’’ under the well-known Best Companies initiative designed to help employees identify the best employers.’
Main picture credit: PA Images
