Cornwall-headquartered business lender FOLK2FOLK says it is on track to double profits to about £2m.
The company, which specialises in lending to UK regional SMEs, is expecting, subject to audit, a 2021 pre-tax profit of £1.98m. This will be FOLK2FOLK’s largest annual profit to date and marks three consecutive years of profit for the company.
In addition, FOLK2FOLK has hit several significant growth metrics during 2021 including a return to its pre-2020 track record of double-digit loan book growth, expansion into Northern Ireland and securing a £7m investment commitment from British Business Investments.
During 2021, Launceston-based FOLK2FOLK lent a record £108m to businesses across Cornwall, Devon and other regions of the UK, which brought its total lending to more than half a billion pounds. Roy Warren, FOLK2FOLK managing director, said: “I am proud that during 2021 we delivered on what we said we’re going to do and are financially robust.
“But we’re not stopping there, we have ambitious growth plans for this year which are already moving ahead at pace. We see huge opportunities to write considerable volumes of loans across the UK, and institutional investment is a key part of our strategy to support that.
”We also expect the alternative finance market to continue to consolidate and present an opportunity for us to acquire loan books from other platforms. We see this as a growth area for us and are actively looking within the market to move forward with this.
“We have to anticipate that 2022 is likely to be a challenging year for everyone, with a backdrop of inflation, rising interest rates, and hostilities in Eastern Europe all feeding into an uncertain external environment.
“This makes having a solid and sound base for any business ever more important. With only a small handful of lending platforms turning a profit, our strong profit levels evidence FOLK2FOLK’s stability in terms of finances, business levels and governance, and we know this supports investor and borrower confidence in us”.
In December 2021, FOLK2FOLK received its £7m investment from the commercial arm of the British Business Bank. The marketplace lender received the commitment from British Business Investments (BBI), a wholly-owned commercial subsidiary within the British Business Bank group, the UK government’s economic development bank.
In September 2021 FOLK2FOLK announced a £943,000 profit for the first half of 2021 and said it was on track for a third straight year of profit after suffering a £535,000 loss in 2018.
