Portillion closes down
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Portillion has withdrawn its Financial Services Authority application and decided not to pursue becoming a mortgage lender.
Its Farnborough office has been closed and all 20 staff have been made redundant.
It first planned to become a lender in 2007 when former GMAC-RFC chairman Stephen Knight revealed plans to launch Checkmate Mortgages.
It rebranded to Portillion in February 2010. In February 2011 Knight decided to step down because he had a brain tumour. The firm made its application to the FSA to become a lender in May 2011.
Portillion had set an original launch date of January 1 2012 and planned to offer a range of savings products direct and mortgages through brokers. It had secured more than £58m in investment from SBI Group of Japan.
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Readers' comments (6)
Anonymous | 30 Apr 2012 1:42 pm
I had everything crossed that this business would launch giving brokers more choice and another string to their bow..
It would be great to hear how Stephen is getting on and wish him all the heath and happiness in the world..
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Afro haired broker | 30 Apr 2012 2:57 pm
onlky £58m in investment? - you need quite a bit more than that to be a lender of mortgage sorts right?
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Dennis Jason | 1 May 2012 8:08 am
The FSA don't seem to want to support small lenders in this market.
It's a great shame for the staff who have spend four years building a system and organisation that never had a single orginator; for the investors who must have lost 10s of millions of pounds; for the directors who have the humiliation of failing so publically; and for the broker world which has another potential lender extinguished.
Best of luck to the good staff there in finding something else quickly.
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We're all doomed!! | 1 May 2012 10:05 am
I'm not so sure that this can be blamed on the FSA - whilst there has been no comment from Portillion reported here, my guess is that securing adequate funding lines was the issue.
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anon | 1 May 2012 5:04 pm
I think there is a very good reason this has gone pete tong: The management team are all ex GMAC. FSA beleive GMAC is all that is bad about systems based lending. I suspect that the FSA simply booted their application into the long grass at every twist and turn.
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anon | 1 May 2012 5:04 pm
I think there is a very good reason this has gone pete tong: The management team are all ex GMAC. FSA beleive GMAC is all that is bad about systems based lending. I suspect that the FSA simply booted their application into the long grass at every twist and turn.
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