Orchard Funding Group, the finance group which specialises in insurance premium finance and the professions funding market, is pleased to announce its unaudited results for the six months ended 31 January 2020.
Highlights – in the six months to 31 January 2020, compared to the six months to 31 January 2019:
% increase/ (decrease) | |
Lending volume was up from £36.38m to £37.85m | 4.04% |
Loan book was up from £31.58m to £34.00m | 7.76% |
Revenue was up from £2.77m to £2.86m | 3.25% |
Gross profit was up from £2.45m to £2.56m | 4.49% |
Profit before tax was down from £1.18m to £1.00m | (15.25%) |
Profit after tax was down from £0.95m to £0.80m | (15.79%) |
EPS was down from 4.47p to 3.75p | (16.11%) |
Direct costs were down from £0.32m to £0.31m | (3.13%) |
Other net costs were up from £1.27m to £1.55m | 22.05% |
Barclays Bank has agreed to maintain our facility at £17m and Conister Bank at £2m, confirming the confidence that they have in the group.
Our application for a banking licence is still progressing and it is intended to submit this before the end of April 2020.
The board is again recommending an interim dividend of 1 pence per share (31 January 2019: 1 pence).
More detail on the financial highlights is given in the CFO’s summary.
Ravi Takhar, Chief Executive Officer of the company, stated:
“Our lending and revenue has increased and in line with expectations our costs have increased due to the bank licence application process.
To increase our lending we have entered adjacent low risk credit markets, whilst still focusing on our key insurance premium finance market and are looking forward to continuing our lending growth and progressing our bank licence application.
We are currently living through unprecedented times. The implications of restricting individual movements to consumers, businesses, borrowing, lending and liquidity are still unclear. We have the benefit of a short-term lending book, with a quick contractual pay-back and which in the main finances essential items. As we found in the Global Financial Crisis, in times of stress a shorter-term lending book provides some comfort over a longer-term book.
We also have the benefit of a small, experienced and dedicated team that is able to function effectively on a remote basis to the office. The office is currently continuing to provide full service to all our customers and liquidity providers on a remote working basis.
We continue to watch the market and new lending opportunities carefully and like everyone else, hope and trust that the restrictions on movement will quickly contain and manage the threat to all of us.”
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