Lone Star appoints HML to manage 4,000 Irish mortgages

US private equity fund Lone Star has appointed loan servicing specialist HML to manage a portfolio of residential loans that it acquired last month from UK lender Lloyds.

The portfolio comprises about 4,000 Irish non-performing residential home loans that had a face value of €1.1 billion. It was previously managed by Certus, the Dublin-based outsourcing group that grew out of the former Bank of Scotland (Ireland) retail banking operation.

Lloyds previously operated in Ireland under the Bank of Scotland and Halifax brands and is understood to have sold the “Project Paris” loan book to Lone Star at a significant discount.

HML has operated in Ireland since 2005. Before securing this contract it was servicing more than 10,000 residential mortgages in Ireland to the value of about €2.8 billion.

The company employs about 350 staff at offices in Dublin and Derry and was recently assigned an “above average” rating by Standard & Poor’s as a primary residential loan servicer in Ireland.

Acquired by Computershare

HML was acquired recently by global financial services company Computershare, which itself has offices in Dublin and Monaghan, employing 120 staff.

Lloyds withdrew from the Irish market in 2010, and has run down its non-core Irish loan book from about €16 billion in 2009 to €13.4 billion as of June 2014.

Lone Star has been busy acquiring assets in Ireland in the past year or so. In September, it acquired Start Mortgages, a subprime mortgage business owned by South African bank Investec, for an undisclosed sum. The acquisition of Start also gave the US fund an Irish lending licence.