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Jessica Darnbrough
Bluestone Group has flagged its intentions to return to mortgage lending.
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Speaking to The Adviser, the company’s chief executive officer Peter McGuiness said the group would look to re-enter the market within the next 12 to 18 months.
“At the moment we are waiting for the securitisation market to improve,” Mr McGuiness said.
“It has improved slightly in the last 12 months, but it is not where we need it to be. Ideally, we would like to see the level of non-AOFM transactions outweigh AOFM transactions before we make any decisions about lending.”
Yesterday, the group announced that Macquarie Bank would take a 17.5 per cent stake in the company.
But Mr McGuiness said Macquarie’s investment in the company was not directly linked with Bluestone’s decision to re-enter the mortgage space.
“We have been eyeing up the market for some time now. We just want to make sure we play our cards right. We have the team in place to move quickly when the time is right, but that time is yet to arrive,” he said.
Mr McGuiness said when and if Bluestone re-enters the market it would look to cater to the self-employed sector.
The lender was forced to stop originating non-conforming loans in September 2008 when the cost of funding became too high.
