Mars Capital ramps up Irish debt servicing business

Mars Capital, one of the biggest foreign buyers of Irish mortgages in the aftermath of the financial crisis, is bringing its loan portfolio in-house as it gets ready to ramp up its Irish-based debt-service capabilities, having signed its first customer. The move follows the acquisition of the Irish fund by UK debt servicer Arrow Global last year.

Mars Capital, formerly an affiliate of US private equity firm Oaktree, came to Ireland in 2014 when it acquired mortgages belonging to Springboard, Permanent TSB's former subprime lending unit and Irish Nationwide Building Society.

Last August, Mars Capital’s UK and Irish mortgage servicing businesses were acquired for £15.5 million by the Manchester-based debt recovery firm Arrow Global, which cited the deal at the time as offering a “strategic entry into Ireland”, which offers “significant debt purchasing and servicing potential”.

Since then, the company has sought to position itself to do so.

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Portfolio outsourced

In September 2014 it outsourced a portfolio of about 1,500 owner-occupied and buy-to-let mortgages to Acenden (formerly known as Capstone), a UK- and Irish-based mortgage servicing company, with customer contact and servicing duties administered out of Dublin. However, on February 26th it ended this relationship and brought servicing back in-house.

According to a spokesman for Arrow Global, Mars Capital Ireland had already been servicing all customers who were not up to date for the last two years, and “it was always the intention to extend this to all customers similar to Mars Capital UK’s servicing”.

All of Mars Capital’s loans will now be serviced by Mars Capital Finance Ireland DAC, an entity which employs 30 people in Dublin. According to the spokesman, Mars Capital Ireland today manages just under 5,000 individual customer loans .

The move coincides with a desire to ramp up the capabilities of the Irish offering, and undertake servicing work for other loan owners. Back in December, Mars Capital Ireland signed up its first customer, and while details of this are confidential, the company is “pleased with progress to date and the opportunities we see ahead,” the spokesman said.