IVAs Increasing Dramatically
Okay, before I ramble on about IVAs, I’d like to make sure you know what they are - but, too be honest, I’d have ask myself what somone who doesn’t know what an IVA is, is doing trawling through a Blog about the secured loans industry. But, if you don’t know what an Individual Voluntary Arrangement (IVA) is, then this flowchart will help.
The reason for my ramble is - I’ve been having a gander at the IVA market and I’ve been completely blown over by what I’ve read. My first ports of call were the various DTI websites that talk about IVAs. They show that the number of IVAs being taken out is basically doubling every year. If you want proof then these DTI statistics back this up.
The next thing that interested me was the number of publicly quoted companies who now deal with IVAs.
Firstly there’s Debtmatters Group PLC who deal exclusively with IVAs and claim to have 14% of the market. In their last results they increased the number of IVAs they dealt with by an impressive 329% with 554 cases processed in the last reported year. This contributed to turnover of £7.8m and an impressive PBT of £2.8m.
From the results, their ‘outlook’ reads
“Debtmatters has delivered impressive growth during the period under review and is well positioned to continue its momentum. It is the Board’s intention to employ additional insolvency practitioners to underpin the strength of our core business as well as to develop ancillary services through select acquisitions. Significant opportunities exist for the Group and I look forward to updating shareholders with further progress in due course.”
Then there’s Debts.co.uk PLC who also deal in secured loans. They only joined AIM a couple of months ago, but in a trading statement say “The Board of Debts.co.uk, the specialist advisors for personal debt solution
management, are pleased to announce that trading for the last quarter, since the publication of the AIM admission document, has exceeded their expectations and the Company is confident that the final results for the year ended 31 July 2006 will be in line with market expectations.
The next trundling along on the IVA bandwaggon is Accuma Group PLC who also purchased the London based IVA specialist Thomas Charles and Co Ltd only last month.
then there’s The Begbies Traynor Group PLC who in May bought Middleton Partners and the following month Wilson Pitts.
It’s interesting to note that following the dramatic increase in IVAs in the last few years the DTI are bound to follow up with more investigations into the market.
