Paragon Bank announce the acquisition of Five Arrows Leasing for £117m
– Paragon Bank, a British “challenger bank”, was launched in February last year. It is a wholly owned subsidiary of The Paragon Group of Companies PLC, a FTSE 250 company.
– Five Arrows Leasing is a well-established and profitable SME asset finance business with five specialist product offerings. It has been acquired from Rothschild & Co.
– This is Paragon Bank’s first acquisition and it meets the Bank’s strategic objective of entering the UK SME finance market.
The business has excellent growth prospects:
– Specialist segments of the market are currently underserved
– SMEs have been reporting strong levels of confidence and planned investment
– Following the acquisition, Paragon Bank is now expected to deliver a profit in 2016
– The acquisition allows Paragon Group to further diversify its sources of income
