Victory Park Capital is looking to raise £200 million in an IPO on the London Stock Exchange. The proceeds will be invested through peer-to-peer platforms.
The prospectus says that the company will be targeting a net dividend yield of 8% and a net total return in excess of 10% per annum. Since its inception Victory Park Capital has completed about $2.9 billion of investments, which includes a wide range of loans to small and medium sized businesses, subprime, near-prime and prime consumers.
The IPO announcement also outlined which companies the Investment Manager already has existing relationships with and those that it is expected to gain exposure to. These include: Assetz Capital; Avant Credit; Borro; Elevate Credit; Fast Legal Funding; Kreditech; LendUp Global; Funding Circle USA and Funding Circle; OnDeck Capital; Prosper Marketplace; Square and Upstart. The company is aiming to be fully invested within six months from Admission.
Victory Park recently announced that it would be investing through Funding Circle. It will finance up to $420 million in loans to small businesses originated on the platform in both the US and the UK over the next three years. The company also recently committed to investing £150 million via the Assetz Capital platform over the next five years.
The Victory Park IPO shows the strength of interest from institutional investors in the P2P space. In January this year P2P GI successfully raised £250 million via a C-share offering. The value of its shares climbed by 14% between its IPO in May 2014 and early January 2015. It is well known that in the US the majority of investors on the biggest platforms, Lending Club and Prosper, are institutional investors. The success of P2P GI and Victory Park's announcement is a sign that institutional interest is on the rise in the UK.