Business Loan Network appoints administrators

Business Loan Network, the winding-down peer-to-peer lending business formerly known as ThinCats, has gone into administration.

ThinCats exited the retail peer-to-peer lending market in December 2019 to focus on institutional funding. It started a managed run-off plan for its P2P business, for loan recovery and distribution to lenders.

In February this year, ThinCats migrated all its P2P lender communications and services to its sister brand Business Loan Network.

ESF Capital is the parent company of both firms.

Geoff Bouchier and Robert Armstrong, both of Kroll – a trading name of Duff & Phelps – have been appointed joint administrators of Business Loan Network.

“The directors of the company took this decision, having regard to the company’s present and likely future financial position, in order to protect the interests of its creditors as a whole,” said Bouchier.

“It is the intention of the joint administrators to continue to wind-down the remaining loan book during the administration process. The administrators have appointed ESF Capital, the company’s parent which has been providing services to support the managed run-off plan prior to the administration, as wind down servicer to assist in this process.”

ESF Capital will continue to be the primary contact with borrowers and lenders on behalf of the company in administration, Kroll said.

All other entities in the ESF Group will continue to trade as normal, the administrators added. ESF Capital, trading as ThinCats, remains as a going concern and is continuing to trade.

Lenders will continue to have access to the company’s online portal and the internal messaging system within the portal.

Questions from lenders submitted via the internal messaging system or via [email protected] will continue to be answered in the usual way, Kroll said, and loan updates will be emailed as usual.