Credit, Collections & Insolvency News
Kensington Mortgages the specialist mortgage lender, has announced that it has completed its sale to Barclays Bank.
Barclays has acquired the business from funds affiliated with Blackstone Tactical Opportunities and Sixth Street, which jointly owned the business since 2015. The acquisition allows Barclays to become one of the few major banks with a specialist mortgage offering.
Kensington Mortgages, which is based in Maidenhead, has around 600 employees and originated approximately £1.9 billion of mortgages in the year ended 31st March 2022.
As part of the acquisition, all of Kensington’s employees will transfer over to Barclays and Kensington will continue day-to-day business operations as usual. The business will retain its brand and be a largely standalone business, but now also benefit from the financial strength, deposit funding base and operational reach of Barclays as it looks to continue its journey of growth and innovation to support a range of borrowers with complex incomes.
Mark Arnold, CEO of Kensington Mortgages, said “Today marks the start of an exciting new chapter of growth for Kensington. We have a strong track-record in the specialist mortgage space, using our proprietary technology, data analytics and human insights to design innovative products and make lending decisions to serve our customer base – the self-employed and those with multiple or variable incomes. As a major UK bank with a broad reach and offering, Barclays is well-placed to support our expansion. We look forward to working with them closely to bring our propositions to a wider range of individuals across the UK. And as we enter this new chapter, we would like to thank Blackstone and Sixth Street for all their support and investment over the last 8 years.”
Matt Hammerstein, CEO of Barclays Bank said “The transaction reinforces our commitment to the UK residential mortgage market and presents an exciting opportunity to broaden our product range and capabilities. Kensington is a best-in-class specialist mortgage lender with an established track record in the UK market, strong broker and customer relationships and data analytics capabilities. Kensington complements our existing UK mortgage business and broker relationships through the addition of a specialist prime mortgage originator and the utilisation of our strong UK funding base. We look forward to KMC management and employees becoming part of the Barclays group.”