Pepper Money completes largest securitisation to date
Pepper Money has closed, its largest Residential Mortgage-Backed Securitisation (RMBS) to date, Polaris 2022-1, backed by £450m of mortgage loans.
Polaris included a mix of first charge owner occupied and Buy to Let mortgage loans, with 25% of the portfolio being customers with legacy CCJs. As a testament to the well-established Pepper platform as a consistent issuer, the securitisation attracted the participation of new investors even against the backdrop of a volatile market driven by rising inflation and other geo-political concerns.
During January Pepper also called the legacy Castell 2018-1 securitisation at the first available opportunity, underlining its commitment to the RMBS market.
Pepper Money has now successfully issued 9 transactions, approaching £3bn into the RMBS market across first and second charge mortgage loans and anticipates a number of additional securitisations during 2022.
The award-winning specialist lender has recently confirmed a new funding facility with HSBC and is growing its Treasury team to support its continued ambition.
Matthew Blake, treasurer at Pepper Money, said: “At Pepper Money, our objective is to support greater financial inclusion in the UK housing market. Polaris, which was our largest RMBS to date and was a mix of residential and buy-to-let mortgage loans, a quarter of which had associated CCJs. These CCJs relate to historic events that our customers can demonstrate are in the past and as part of our financial inclusion strategy we believe this should not present an impediment to accessing a mortgage. The strong performance of these mortgages is a testament to our robust underwriting and our ability to support our customers, this simultaneously provides opportunities for both our customers and our investors.
“These are exciting times at Pepper Money. We are in the process of growing our Treasury team to support the expansion of the funding platform and have recently executed a new funding facility with HSBC, who join as a new counterparty providing additional diversification and capacity to support our second charge proposition.
Laurence Morey, CEO at Pepper Money, said: “The Polaris 2022-1 securitisation is our largest deal to date and includes a number of new investors, demonstrating the quality of assets that we are able to generate at Pepper Money. It caps a great month in which we have launched Pepper branded second charge mortgages, continued to innovate with our use of AVMs and made a number of other proposition enhancements. It’s an exceptional start to, what promises to be, a very exciting year.”
