Sector developments and company hires

ABS facility expands

Amigo Holdings has increased its securitisation facility to £300m. It has a three-year term and is set to close on Thursday. The company intends to use drawdowns from the facility for general corporate purposes and the potential repayment of indebtedness. The facility, which has a minimum three-year term and amortises thereafter, will have a funding rate around 500bp below the current cost of the company's senior secured notes and will, in time, lower Amigo's overall average cost of capital.

Bank bulks up real estate expertise

BNP Paribas Real Estate, Ireland has hired Robert Murphy as director, business development and capital advisory. He was previously head of debt and structured finance at Cushman & Wakefield, Ireland.

Ceo appointed

CleanFund has named Lain Gutierrez as ceo. He most recently founded SolFin Capital and before that was a senior rating analyst at DBRS. The appointment is concurrent with a US$500m financial commitment from Starwood Sustainable Credit for C-PACE investments originated by CleanFund. In addition, entities affiliated with Vulcan Capital have made a follow-on investment in CleanFund, atop their investment in 2017. CleanFund founder John Kinney will become chairman.

New rules for UK P2P platforms

The UK FCA has announced new rules for UK peer-to-peer lending firms to limit the negative consequences for investors. The regulator will now limit the amount of money first time customers can invest to 10% of the customer’s investable assets. There is no limit, however, on investors who have received regulated finance advice.

Additionally the FCA is bringing in further rules for UK P2P platforms to covering more explicit requirements on what governance arrangements and systems they have in place to support the outcomes they advertise as well as plans for the wind-down of P2P platforms if they fail. The new rules also introduce a new requirement to assess investors’ knowledge and experience of P2P investments when they haven’t received professional advice. The new rules come into effect on 9 December 2019.