Specialist mortgage lender Kensington Group is to rebrand as Northview Group in an effort to bring together its offerings and offer a real alternative to high street lenders, the group’s chief executive Amany Attia has announced.
The Northview Group will comprise of Kensington Mortgages, Acenden Mortgage Servicing Solutions and New Street Mortgages, which is expected to launch early this year.
“We expect this new brand will provide a terrific platform to support the growth of Kensington and Acenden, allowing us to bring innovation, insight and transparency to the mortgage market.
“As a group we are fortunate to benefit from the experience and consistency of companies with a 20-year history of innovating and serving the market, alongside the backing and ambition of the management team and shareholders,” Ms Attia said.
The move comes following the acquisition of Kensington from Anglo-South African financial services group Investec in February 2015 by Blackstone and TPG for £180m.
The two private equity funds also bought High Wycombe-based Acenden from Lehman Brothers administrators in January 2015.
Kensington is a specialist residential and buy-to-let lender specialising in complex income, self-employed and adverse credit loans.
Mike Richards, director of London-based Mortgage Concepts Associates, said: “Any business coming in to challenge the high street offerings is a very good thing.
“I hope they keep their separate identities however it does seem that Kensington will focus on manual underwriting and use New Street to go head to head with the standard high street lenders such as Halifax and Santander.
“The only negative is that it will be slowly launching through selective intermediaries only, so will not be available to all immediately, at least until the second half of the year.”
