RE: Ft.com23 Aug 2020 14:34
James Benamor, the founder of troubled subprime lender Amigo, has called on the company to appoint him as group chief executive, barely two months after a vicious battle with the company’s management led him to offload most of his majority holding
In a blog post on Friday evening, Mr Benamor said he wanted to return to the company to lead an international expansion while fighting what he described as “unethical” UK authorities.
Under his proposed plan, incumbent chief executive Glen Crawford would remain in charge of Amigo’s UK-regulated subsidiary, Amigo Loans Ltd, with a focus on cutting costs, reducing debt and launching a judicial review of the way the Financial Ombudsman Service has handled customer complaints.
Mr Benamor, meanwhile, would lead its ultimate parent company Amigo Holdings and build new businesses in markets which, “unlike the UK regulated market, enjoy fair and stable rule of law”. Mr Benamor had previously been reported to be planning to establish an international rival to Amigo after he first left the company’s board in 2018.
Amigo dominates the UK’s guarantor lending market, offering loans to people with weak credit histories provided a friend or family member agrees to step in if a borrower misses repayments. It grew rapidly after a series of regulatory crackdowns on other subprime lending models such as payday loans and rent-to-own retailers, but began attracting increasing regulatory scrutiny itself last year.
Amigo tried to pre-empt a regulatory crackdown by tightening its approach to risk and reducing its reliance on repeat borrowers. However, Mr Benamor accused it of knowingly carrying out reckless lending while failing to stand up to the FOS, which he said had encouraged consumers and professional claims management companies to make fraudulent claims against lenders.
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