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Bury St Edmunds based Fortress, founded in 2007, has developed quickly to become one of the UK’s foremost payday lending businesses. Fortress is an entirely online lender, and was recognized with best of breed IT systems and observance procedures to allow it to be scalable. It has grown rapidly since formation and a recent report found it to be one of the top five players in the market.
Fortress, which trades under the brand names “1 Month Loan” and “Mayday Payday”, provides short term unsecured loans to private individuals known as payday loans as they are intended to be repaid “on payday”. Such loans have high interest rates but their cost compares favourably to unauthorized overdraft facilities and they are much easier to access than bank finance. For the customers they are convenient and confidential.
Payday lending is a mature market in the United States – indeed there are more payday lending outlets than there are branches of McDonalds. The UK market is less developed but growing rapidly and is attractive to US acquirers as demonstrated by the recent agreement by NASDAQ listed Dollar Financial Corp to acquire Purpose UK Holding the largest UK payday lender for £124M
Think Finance is one of the US’s fastest growing private companies with three year revenue growth of over 70% . Think Finance provides innovative financial products which provide under-banked consumers with better solutions for their financial needs combining, convenience, affordability, and transparency. Established in 2001, Think Finance has served over 1 million customers. The company is privately held and backed by some of Silicon Valley’s most respected venture capital firms, including Sequoia Capital and Technology Crossover Partners.
Think Finance will provide capital to support Fortress’s expansion. All of the Fortress Directors will remain with the business to lead its development.
Kieran Moulden, CEO of Fortress, said “This is a fantastic deal for Fortress, which gives us an entrepreneurial corporate partner to help fund our growth as the UK market develops. I would like to thank PEM Corporate Finance for their tenacity and insight over the past year during which they have helped us to prepare the company for sale and to market the company internationally.”
Lake Falconer of PEM Corporate Finance added “Kieran and Stuart have achieved a huge amount in building Fortress to such a strong position in a short period of time. Think is an ideal buyer which should help them continue on their growth trajectory. We were pleased that our marketing of the company delivered such strong competitive interest, particularly from North America.”
Legal advice to the Directors of Fortress was provided by Vanessa Walton and Tom Pickthorn at Mills & Reeve in Cambridge.
