trustbuddy

Breaking News: Trustbuddy Suspends Operations – Investigations on Misconduct

wiseclerk 1 Comment

UPDATE Oct., 19th: Trustbuddy has filed for bankruptcy

An investigation initiated by the new management of TrustBuddy AB has indicated serious misconduct within the company. The Board of Directors has informed Nasdaq OMX and the Swedish FSA about the situation, and the FSA has demanded that TrustBuddy is to stop offering its services with immediate effect. As a consequence, the company’s planned rights issue is suspended. The Board of Directors will prepare a control balance sheet and are currently evaluating all available options in order to find a viable solution for all parties.

Background

The new management team has been in place since early September, 2015. In connection with the repositioning of the business, an investigation of the business activities undertaken by the former management was initiated. The investigation is ongoing, but has so far pointed at several breaches of internal or external regulation:

  • The Company has used lenders’ capital in violation of their instructions, or, without their permission. As a result, there is currently a 44M SEK (approx 4.7M EUR) discrepancy between the amount owed to lenders and the available balance of the client bank accounts.
  • The total amount currently lent out on the platform is approximately 300 MSEK, of which, 37 MSEK is not assigned to lenders.
  • The Company has re-assigned existing loans, a significant portion of which were likely non-performing, to new capital deployed by lenders.

The investigation indicates that these practices were likely in place since the TrustBuddy platform began operation.
Actions taken by the new management and the Board of Directors

The questionable practices mentioned above, limited to the Company’s short-term lending business, have been stopped with immediate effect.

Further, the Board of Directors informed Nasdaq OMX and the Swedish FSA about the findings. Based on the findings, the FSA demanded that TrustBuddy is to stop offering its services with immediate effect. As a consequence, the planned rights issue, scheduled to run from 14 October 2015 to 30 October 2015, is suspended.

Due to the severe breaches of the internal and/or external regulation, the Board of Directors has also decided to file a report to the Swedish Police Authority.

The Dutch subsidiary Geldvoorelkaar, which focuses on lending to small and medium-sized enterprises, has been operating on a stand-alone basis and has not been subject to misconduct. Continue reading →

Trustbuddy Acquires Geldvoorelkaar and Prestiamoci

wiseclerk 1 Comment

Trustbuddy has entered into an agreement to acquire Italian Prestiamoci, a long-term Peer-to-Peer (P2P) lender, for a total of EUR 5.3 million in order to strengthen its offering of business loans to small and medium-sized enterprises and consumer credit in most European countries.

Furthermore TrustBuddy has agreed to acquire Dutch Geldvoorelkaar for a consideration of EUR10.6m. The consideration comprises EUR 3 million cash, EUR 4 million through the issue of new shares at a 20% premium to the pre-announcement share price and a EUR 3.6 million vendor loan of which 50% is redeemed in January 2016 and 50% redeemed in January 2017. Shares issued as part of the consideration will be subject to lock-up restrictions which expire in January 2016 in respect of 50% of the shares and January 2017 for the remainder.

Both acquisitions remain subject to the satisfaction of certain conditions. In particular, the acquisition of Prestiamoci is conditional upon Prestiamoci receiving a payment services, PSD, license. The Company is currently considering various financing options, including a potential equity fundraising, to part finance the acquisitions.

Geldvoorelkaar (see earlier coverage)

Geldvoorelkaar is the first P2P lending platform with a credit licence issued by the Dutch Financial uthority (AFM).  Geldvoorelkaar offers a professional and established alternative source of financing for SMEs.

  • Geldvoorelkaar opens up European SME market opportunities to TrustBuddy. Management believes there to be substantial demand for alternative lending sources in the Nordic market in particular in P2P lending in the Netherlands.
  • Geldvoorelkaar has been fully operational since 2012 and has a c60-65% estimated market share.
  • Year to date, Geldovoorelkaar has funded EUR 20 million of SME loans with an average revenue margin approaching 6% with no active marketing.
  • Geldvoorelkaar is a strong SME platform with EUR 1.6 million expected revenue for 2014 and growth in the Netherlands expected at an average of 80% in the following two years.*
  • Geldvoorelkaar is already profitable with an expected earnings before interest and tax for 2014 of EUR 0.7 million
  • Subject to the satisfaction of certain conditions, TrustBuddy has agreed to acquire Geldvoorelkaar for a consideration of EUR10.6m. The consideration comprises EUR 3 million cash, EUR 4 million through the issue of new shares at a 20% premium to the pre-announcement share price and a EUR 3.6 million vendor loan of which 50% is redeemed in January 2016 and 50% redeemed in January 2017. Shares issued as part of the consideration will be subject to lock-up restrictions which expire in January 2016 in respect of 50% of the shares and January 2017 for the remainder.

Prestiamoci (see earlier coverage)

Prestiamoci is an Italian private P2P lending company focussing on long term consumer loans.

  • Prestiamoci has established a licenced P2P platform in the highly regulated Italian market. The acquisition is conditional on Prestiamoci obtaining EEA-wide PSD license approval, enabling European roll-out.
  • Prestiamoci re-launched its platform in May 2014 and has since funded EUR 175k with and average revenue margin of 4%.
  • Acquisition adds diversification to TrustBuddy’s existing offering into a product with lower regulatory risk and increased revenue visibility.
  • Prestiamoci’s seasoned management team joining TrustBuddy management will bring significant experience within credit risk assessment.
  • TrustBuddy expects to rollout a consumer instalment loan product in new markets in 2015, and envisages 80% of revenue from this new product from the Nordic markets.

In September 2014 Prestiamoci had concluded a financing round of 450K EUR and in October 2013 a previous capital increase of 550K EUR. According to sources, Digital Magics Angel Network ,which invested just a year ago and provided strategic support in refocusing Prestiamoci, achieves a gain of about 300% on the transaction. Continue reading →

Trustbuddy – P2P Lending Service Listed at Public Stock Exchange

wiseclerk 3 Comments

I have been aware of Trustbuddy for some time. They are (at least internationally) pretty unknown since they do not do much marketing. I have only once written about them before, in order not to give publicity to a company which charges interest loans for rates in a height, that I deem could be called usury (on moral grounds not on legal grounds).
According to their own published figures on the site the current ‘Effective annual interest’ for a one year loan varies between 219% and 852% (733% to 5102% for a one month loan).
While Trustbuddy calls itself a p2p lending service, their rates are somewhat closer to Wonga (see Need a loan at 2334 percent APR).

Why do I now write about Trustbuddy then?

Well ignoring them, won’t make business models like these  disappear. And it seems to be profitable for the service as well for lenders as per the numbers that Trustbuddy supplied P2P-Banking.com.

But the main questions I ask lenders is: Do you feel it is ethical to earn the 12% p.a. interest rate given the costs the borrowers are charged? If you answer this with yes for yourself, then Trustbuddy may be a good choice for you.

Furthermore Trustbuddy is one of few companies in this business that have a drive for international expansion. Remember they bought Loanland operations earlier.

The following is information supplied by Trustbuddy:

TrustBuddy AB (2009), a Swedish P2P lending facilitation company. Using in-house developed and proprietary mobile-/web-based financing solutions, it facilitates smaller short-term loans between private consumers. The company does not lend out its own money; pooled loan-portfolio investors provide funding. TrustBuddy has already reached close to 40,000 registered members, of which more than 20,000 are active customers, in Norway and Sweden alone. This is done with virtually no marketing efforts, showing how popular the product is. Continue reading →

Trustbuddy Acquires Loanland Operations

wiseclerk 1 Comment

Trustbuddy AB has acquired the operations of Swedish p2p lending site Loanland effective November 19th. This means that Loanland will not close as reported earlier. Trustbuddy AB is a Swedish company with Norwegian origins. Trustbuddy will continue operations and in mid-term plans to integrate the activities of the service into their own platform. Loanland users were informed that the transfer of the membership agreements does not change anything for them.

(Source: Company statements)

No financial details on the deal were available.