5 months ago
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The ownership of Carilend has shifted from VM Investments Limited to VM Financial Group.
No details of the transaction were disclosed, but VM Investments referred to it as a ‘strategic sale’ of its 30 per cent stake in the online lending platform, an investment it had previously written down to nil from 2022.
“In the first quarter of the financial year, VMIL made significant strides in executing strategic initiatives geared at promoting sustainable growth,” the company said.
“One of these included the sale of VMIL’s 30 per cent stake in Carilend Caribbean Holdings Limited in March 2024,” stated the company’s March financials.
The online platform is based in Barbados, but it also operates in Jamaica and Trinidad.
“The shareholding in Carilend was acquired by the VM Financial Group and this transaction had a positive impact on the gains from investment activities,” VMIL reported. VM Investments CEO Rezworth Burchenson didn’t respond immediately to requests for comment.
During the quarter, VMIL earned $687 million from gains on its investments, compared to less than $100 million a year earlier.
Carilend was started in 2015 by two former executives turned entrepreneurs, namely former CIBC banker Mark Young, who leads Carilend as its CEO, and former executive of telecoms Digicel, Mark Linehan. Carilend is also partly owned by Barbabos-based serial entrepreneur Kailash Pardasani, according to VMIL’s 2022 financials.
The company was solely operating in Barbados from 2015 until August 2020 when it launched in Jamaica. By 2019, VMIL had acquired 30 per cent interest in the online lender for $106 million or around US$750,000 at the time.
At the platform’s launch in Jamaica, the company unveiled a co-branded VM-Carilend loan product. This collaborative approach was mirrored in 2022 for the launch in Trinidad & Tobago with Massy Finance.
Carilend’s user base then spanned over 58,000, and it handled more than 33,000 loan applications in its three operational countries.
The online lender generated revenue of US$255,000 in 2022, but expenses outmatched inflows, leading to a loss of US$92,000.
In the March 2024 first quarter, amid the sevenfold expansion of gains on investment, VMIL made $510 million in profit, up $20 million in the comparative 2022 quarter.
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