Amigo Holdings ups complaints provision, shares slide
Amigo Holdings
0.23p
08:14 26/04/24
Amigo Holdings shares slid on Tuesday after the guarantor lender said it has had to increase its provision for customer complaints over mis-selling and that it won't resume lending until 2021.
Financial Services
14,026.78
08:20 26/04/24
FTSE All-Share
4,414.77
08:20 26/04/24
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6,426.97
08:20 26/04/24
The company, which lends to people with bad credit histories, said it expects the provision for complaints to rise to more than £150m from £116.4m in the first quarter, leading to a profit & loss charge of more than £85m. It cited an increase in complaints received, mainly from claims management companies.
Amigo was found by the Financial Conduct Authority to have failed to properly evaluate whether customers were able to afford their loans. As a result, the FCA banned the company from paying dividends to directors and ordered it to deal with all compensation claims by the end of October.
A total of 25,571 complaints were included in the FCA ruling and Amigo said on Tuesday that it had reviewed and reached a decision on all of them.
Chief executive officer Gary Jennison said: "Amigo has reviewed and reached a decision on all cases included in the complaints voluntary requirement we agreed with our regulator. It is a testament to the efforts of the whole team that this has been achieved by the end of October, notwithstanding the circa 10% of cases that have a specific, known reason why they have yet to receive their final response from Amigo.
"While operationally we have turned a corner with complaints, the sustained volume we are seeing will have an impact on the complaints provision going forward. We have placed the provision under review and a full update will be provided at our half year results."
Amigo insisted that working with the regulator to fix the complaints situation was its "number one priority" but said it does not expect to be back lending to people until 2021.
At 1320 GMT, the shares were down 22% at 6.66p.
Broker Peel Hunt said: "Amigo says it has sufficient liquidity and cites £140m of unrestricted cash at end-October, but we believe the significant scale of the additional provisioning is materially worse than expectations.
"Amigo is priced for bad news, but negative developments continue to happen and we would avoid this name for now."