LONDON (Alliance News) - Manx Financial Group PLC Friday said it expects to report a "marked uplift" in profit for the first six months of 2014 compared with the corresponding period last year, as it reported that its assets have surpassed the GBP100.0 million mark for the first time.
In a statement, the financial services group, which is made up of Conister Bank Ltd, Conister Card Services Ltd, and Edgewater Associates Ltd, said that its outlook is "extremely promising" and said that it expects its assets to exceed GBP100.0 million for the remainder of the year.
The group also said it expects to make an announcement "shortly" about a new joint venture that will focus on insurance premium and asset backed finance for the UK professional business sector, but it did not give further details.
Additionally, Conister Bank has agreed a deal with digital non-bank lender PayBreak Ltd that will see loans ranging between GBP100 and GBP1,000 made to online customers in the UK. PayBreak, which was founded in 2010 and is based in Manchester, provides consumer loans through online merchants.
Conister Bank has also collected the remainder of the outstanding liabilities connected with its efforts to run off its litigation funding business, which it said will result in a further credit to its interim income statement. Conister Bank entered the litigation funding market at the end of 2001 but stopped lending to the market in 2006 after a significant number of defaults. At that point, the outstanding loan balance was GBP6.1 million. Since then, the bank has been reducing provisions against the loans and recovering what was due to it wherever possible.
Manx Financial shares were Friday quoted at 15.50 pence, up 15.9%.
By Samuel Agini; samagini@alliancenews.com; @samuelagini
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Manx Financial (MFX)