Liberty’s loan portfolio (comprising lease purchase, finance lease and loan agreements) has broken through the £100m barrier for the first time in its history. This was achieved following a strong flow of new business in 2017 Q1 and represents growth of 23% from the 2015 year-end position.
Lewis Banford, Area Manager (South East) commented:
“With a record first quarter totalling to £6.18m, 2017 has seen my best first Quarter ever with a company record of over £3.6m of business written in March by myself and Isaac Hooper. Hats off to Isaac for writing Liberty’s biggest ever single Transaction of £2.5m on a collection of Classic Cars and special thanks to our Colleagues, Brokers and Customers for helping us make this happen. I’m now in my twelfth year with Liberty and it’s incredible to be part of our success. “
Over the past five years Liberty’s loan portfolio has grown at a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 25% per annum.
Normalised profit before tax has grown at a CAGR of 23% over the past 5 years, reaching £4.8m in FY16 representing a 34% PBT margin.
Alan Cooper, Finance Director commented:
“This is great news for the business and testament to the hard work of all the teams at Liberty involved in making this happen. Reaching the £100m mark now gives us the incentive to push on with further growth. It also cements our position as the largest independent UK lessor.
We have been able to reach this milestone with the support of our customers, brokers and funders.
Our funders provide us with the debt capital to enable us to grow the loan portfolio, and we currently have £30m in additional headroom. This now enables us to look to the future and plan for even further growth.”
Liberty also recently achieved recognition in the Financial Times’ Top 1000 fastest growing companies in Europe campaign. Out of the 1000 companies, 235 were UK companies and Liberty was one of only 20 companies to feature in the Financial Services category in the UK.
