Grant Thornton appointed to Loans at Home administration
Consumer lending business Loans at Home has entered administration. Grant Thornton professionals have been tasked with overseeing the process.
Non-Standard Finance (NSF) is a UK-based consumer finance company. The company provides home credit under the brands Loans at Home and Everyday Loans. Loans at Home is the UK's third-largest provider of home credit.
Based in Stoke on Trent, the company lent money to customers with repayment periods between 14 and 63 weeks. The news that it has appointed administrators does not impact its existing loan agreements – it continues to be regulated by the Financial Conduct Authority (FCA), so current agreements remain in place. However, Non-Standard Finance can no longer issue new loans.
Loans At Home lent £45.4 million to customers in 2020 – a fall of 41% from 2019, according to its latest accounts. The firm said this was because Covid-19 lockdowns meant it could not visit customers in their homes, disrupting its business model. At the peak of the pandemic, it stopped doing any lending at all for two months of 2020, and in the end it made a £2.5 million loss for the year.
A note on the NSF website said a review found "there may have been harm to certain home credit customers", while discussions with directors at SD Taylor (the company which trades as Loans at Home) and the FCA found Loans At Home was "no longer viable" as a business. NSF said placing the company into administration was the "only option available in order to preserve value for creditors".
Chris Laverty, Trevor O’Sullivan and Andrew Charters of Grant Thornton were appointed as joint administrators of SD Taylor in mid-March. A statement from the administrators noted they are trying to explore recovery options for creditors including an orderly wind down of the business over time and sale of the assets.
The note added, "The joint administrators will start the process of identifying all creditors, in accordance with their statutory obligations, and provide those creditors with information as to the potential for recoveries in the administration estate."
