Sector developments and company hires

BTL issuer acquired
Starling Bank has acquired specialist buy-to-let mortgage lender Fleet Mortgages in a £50m cash and share deal. To date, Fleet Mortgages has originated £2.3bn of mortgages and experienced zero credit losses. It currently has circa £1.75bn of mortgages under management and has executed nine RMBS.

Starling will become the sole funder of future originations, with Fleet Mortgages able to build on its successful lending operation by accessing Starling’s growing deposit base. Day-to-day operations at Fleet will continue unchanged with the company’s existing management team.

The acquisition - Starling’s first - is part of the bank’s wider plan to expand lending through a mix of strategic forward-flow arrangements, organic lending and targeted M&A activity.

Calculations API launched
Thetica Systems has launched a new module for its proprietary infrastructure: Thetica ElastiCloud API is designed to automate resource management and reduce the costs of cloud operations. Calculations for structured finance portfolios can be very resource-intensive, especially where clients use complex scenarios, run many bonds in parallel or require multiple universe runs. But because resources in Thetica’s new API are activated based on demand, the number of bonds and scenarios being processed simultaneously can be scaled up or down dramatically. Plus, increased server power provides faster job completion without inflating costs.

North America
Z Capital Credit Partners has promoted two in its New York-based CLO team. Director Shahid Khoja has been appointed md and portfolio manager, while senior associate Brian Morrison has been named director. The former previously worked at Garrison Investment Group and Bank of America; the latter previously worked at Oaktree Capital Management and Semler Brossy Consulting Group.