4th Way improves Invest & Fund’s risk rating due to ‘perfect record’
4th Way has improved its risk rating for Invest & Fund and heralded the platform’s “excellent margin of safety” for investors, even during a recession.
The peer-to-peer lending research and ratings firm said that it lifted Invest & Fund’s 4th Way Risk Score “from a very good 5/10 to a rarely awarded 4/10” last month.
It attributed this to the P2P development lending firm’s “increasing maturity and lengthening perfect record”.
“This projects overall losses before interest of under five per cent in a major recession and property crash,” 4th Way said.
“Annual interest easily covers our projections under very harsh economic conditions. Lenders clearly have an excellent margin of safety when spreading their money across lots of these loans.”
Invest & Fund specialists in residential bridging and development finance and has lent out more than £200m since launching in 2015.
It has a top 4th Way PLUS rating of 3/3, “exceptional”.
4th Way particularly noted Invest & Fund’s stellar performance during the pandemic. The firm paused new lending for around five months at the start of the pandemic but restarted again.
Read more: Invest & Fund records record IFISA openings
Some loans fell briefly behind on repaying during the Covid-19 crisis, but there are now no loans even one month past their original end date, 4th Way said.
“No other bridging and development P2P lending companies performed better than Invest & Fund on loans outstanding during the pandemic years,” 4th Way added.
“Invest & Fund kept its loan resale market fully open, and functioning normally, throughout all Covid-19 lockdowns. All loan parts up for resale were quickly purchased.
“During the pandemic, Homes England, a non-departmental public body that funds new affordable housing in England, agreed to start lending through Invest & Fund for seven years.”
Read more: Invest & Fund extends Homes England partnership with new product
Invest & Fund is shortlisted for Property Development Lender of the Year at the Peer2Peer Finance Awards, which take place tomorrow night at London’s Hurlingham Club. Winners will be announced at the event, and on the Peer2Peer Finance News website on Wednesday morning.