BondMason chief airs frustration with administration costs
BondMason chief executive Stephen Findlay said he is pleased the investment manager has now repaid over 100 per cent of invested balances from May 2019 but is frustrated by the costs from the administrations of platforms his firm has loans in.
Findlay (pictured) said BondMason, which closed its peer-to-peer lending offering in May 2019, made repayments across the book with some investors being repaid more than others, due to the nature of its allocation process.
Read more: BondMason says closure of P2P service has proved a good decision for clients
“It’s been a painful couple of years to get there, it’s the right thing to do when you are custodians of peoples’ money,” he said.
“We were committed to do it from the outset and hopefully people can see we’ve done exactly what we said we would and appreciate our efforts.”
Findlay said it’s frustrating to see rising administration costs, which will impact how much is left for lender repayments, from loans with platforms in administration.
Read more: City watchdog sharpens focus on wind-down plans
“There is legal opinion and a lot of the platforms’ loanbooks and court and the normal administration process could quite quickly up the costs and impact on loan recoveries, particularly if loans aren’t performing and being brought in with a degree of write off, so it’s combination of those two factors,” he said.
“There are a lot of legal costs going to and from the courts to ensure legally everything’s been done in the correct way and that’s correct, but inevitably that will impact on the net amount available to investors when it’s fully run through.
“That’s the element of frustration, more than a complaint, it’s not anything wrong just a function of what happens.
“I think a lot of administrators are quite capable and there for a reason, we let them do their jobs. But we equally need to hold feet to the fire time to time and it’s important to remain engaged with them and do that in a balanced and sensible way.
“We have to wait and see how the process runs through. The administrators are grappling with issues and doing it in the right way.
“I’m sure the administrators are doing the best job they can, we have to wait and see what the end results shall look like.”