Amigo Holdings founder calls for takeover, shares surge

Amigo Holdings shares (LON: AMGO) jumped on Friday morning after the lender’s founder called on private investors to support his return.

James Benamor was previously the group’s chief executive, however, left in 2018 and has been in public disagreements with rows over the management ever since.

Benamor has called for the ousting of finance director Nayan Kisnadwala and for himself to be reinstated as chief executive.

Results released today from Amigo Holdings revealed a 31.7% drop in revenue from £71.5m in 2019 to £48.8m for the same period in 2020.

The lender blamed the impact of Covid-19 related payment holidays for the drop in revenue.

Commenting on the Q1 results, Kisnadwala said: “The whole team at Amigo is focused on addressing our legacy issues and building a sustainable business for the long term. Operationally we have turned a corner in our handling of complaints. We are on track to meet the agreement reached with the FCA to resolve our complaints backlog and continue to work with the FCA on its ongoing investigation. We have adequate liquidity and funding to support our ongoing business activity.

We are updating our lending processes and policies to enable Amigo to restart lending in a prudent manner by the end of 2020.”

The firm is no providing full-year guidance for expected performance this year due to the uncertainty around the pandemic and a current investigation by the Financial Conduct Authority.

Amigo Holdings shares (LON: AMGO) are currently trading +15.72 at 13.89 (1237GMT).

 

 

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Safiya focuses on business and political stories for UK Investor Magazine. Her interests include international development, travel and politics.