Taaleritehdas invested 2 million EUR in the peer-to-peer (P2P) lending company Fellow Finance Oy and, at the same time, sold the entire stock of its Financing Company Lainaamo Ltd to Fellow Finance Oy as a share exchange. Lainaamo has a consumer credit portfolio of approximately 20 million EUR  with thousands of consumer customers. After the acquisition, Taaleritehdas owns 38.4% of Fellow Finance Oy. In addition, Taaleritehdas has an option to increase its holding in the company by 7.3%.
Fellow Finance’s founders, Jouni Hintikka and Teemu Nyholm, each own 18.4% of the company. In total, Fellow Finance key persons have a 57.3% holding in the company.

According to its vision, Taaleritehdas aims to develop the Finnish capital market. Taaleritehdas believes that increased direct financing will be one of the most significant changes in the finance industry in the future. The focus in financing will increasingly shift from the bank-centric approach towards direct financing. Another strong megatrend in the financing sector, as seen by Taaleritehdas, is digitalisation. Both Fellow Finance and Lainaamo offer their services completely online. Ownership of Fellow Finance enables Taaleritehdas to offer its customers a new investment form and to utilise digitalisation in its own activities, as well. The merger of Lainaamo and Fellow Finance will not affect the position of borrower
customers or investors.

‘The Fellow Finance transaction is a new, important opening for Taaleritehdas, enabling new growth in direct financing. We believe that the company has excellent prerequisites for quick international expansion. One goal of this co-operation is to offer the customers of Taaleritehdas a new kind of investment opportunity. Through the Lainaamo business, we have discovered that 100% digitality is a very cost-efficient business model that is also very profitable for investors,” says Juhani Elomaa, CEO of Taaleritehdas.

Fellow Finance offers a P2P lending service, through which investors and savers can lend money to those who need it. P2P lending is currently one of the most rapidly growing investment and financing forms in the world. It is expected to revolutionise the traditional banking and financing field thanks to itstransparency, customer orientation, fast technology, and scalability.
P2P lending is part of the peer-to-peer economy featuring business models that enable efficient tradingbetween private persons.
Fellow Finance offers all Finns a way to lend money to each other under their own terms and conditions. Fellow Finance has been operating for a little over a year and says the lenders have earned an average annual return of 13%.

‘Our service has gained thousands of users in a short time. The feedback on our online platform and the new business model has been excellent. We listen actively to our customers, because we are
continuously developing the service for them. As the first P2P lending service, we are also seeking strong growth by acquiring a traditional financing company with its customer base. Next, we are setting our sights on Europe,’ says Jouni Hintikka, CEO of Fellow Finance.