Singapore's GIC takes $120 million stake in Britain's OakNorth bank

Dhani Services

03/11/2017 11:09

LONDON, Nov 3 (Reuters) - Singaporean sovereign investor GIC 
will take a 10 percent stake in British specialist bank OakNorth 
for 90 million pounds ($118 million), OakNorth said on Friday. 
    The bank, which lends to businesses and property developers, 
said GIC has signed a deal to buy the stake from Indian 
conglomerate Indiabulls. 
    It follows on the heels of a 154 million pound investment in 
OakNorth last month from investors Coltrane, Toscafund and The 
Clermont Group. 
    OakNorth said GIC's investment will assist OakNorth's plans 
to expand its global business via the launch of its 'fintech' 
platform ACORN machine, which is designed to use data collection 
and processing to assist lending decisions. 
    Founded in 2015 by entrepreneurs Rishi Khosla and Joel 
Perlman, OakNorth is one of a new breed of British lenders 
launched after the financial crisis in 2008 when the Bank of 
England lowered the capital requirements to set up new banks. 
    Britain's vote to leave the European Union has been a boon 
to some small lenders like OakNorth in throwing up more lending 
opportunities, Khosla told Reuters last year.  urn:newsml:reuters.com:*:nL8N1CR5NJ 
 
 
 ($1 = 0.7654 pounds) 
 
 (Reporting by Lawrence White; Editing by Susan Fenton) 
 ((lawrence.white@thomsonreuters.com; +44 207 542 6137; Reuters 
Messaging: lawrence.white.thomsonreuters@reuters.net)) 
 
Keywords: GIC OAKNORTH/