Starling Bank and Barclays in the race to carve up Kensington
Digital challenger bank Starling and Barclays are among the names looking to snap up a piece of mortgage lender Kensington after its private equity owners put the firm up for sale last year, according to reports.
Starling is reportedly up against Barclays and another high street lender to buy Kensington’s lending platform, while american investment firm Pimco and London-based M&G investments are vying to takeover the firm’s mortgage assets, Sky News’ Mark Kleinman reported today.
Kensington, which specialises in home-loans for the self-employed, was put up for sale late last year by private equity owners Blackstone and Sixth Street, and American bank Morgan Stanley is now overseeing the auction of the business.
The bidding race is expected to lead to two separate transactions with a combined price of over $1bn, Sky reported.
The deals will see the breakup of the lender, one of the largest issuers in the residential mortgage-backed securities market, having issued £12bn of mortgages since 2015.