Bluestone Group to part ways with Irish motor finance business following sale to Close Brothers
Bluestone Group is set to sell its Irish motor finance business to UK-based merchant banking group Close Brothers for an undisclosed sum.
Bluestone Motor Finance Ireland sold to Close Brothers
The deal for Bluestone Motor Finance Ireland (BMFI) is expected to close by Q4 2023 through an all-cash transaction and marks the end of Bluestone’s nine-year ownership of the motor finance and lending business.
It is the second business Bluestone has parted ways with this year following the sale of its UK mortgage business, Bluestone Mortgages (BML), to Shawbrook Group in March.
According to Close Brothers’ group chief executive Adrian Sainsbury, the firm will leverage its acquisition of BMFI to “further expand our presence in the Irish market”. The deal will strengthen its existing motor finance business in the UK and Ireland, which has been trading under the name Close Brothers Motor Finance for over three decades.
BMFI managing director Donal Murphy says the deal will “enable us to offer a wider product range to both car buyers and motor dealers”, while Peter McGuinness, the managing director of Bluestone Group, has confirmed that the group plans on “building a new relationship with Close Brothers” via its fintech arm Fignum, which is headquartered in Cambridge, UK.
Fignum was established in 2019 to service financial institutions with cloud-based loan origination, servicing and receivables management solutions. It currently offers origination products BlueLink and BlueSky, servicing product Boss and the receivables management system Paycada.
During the sale of BML six months ago, Bluestone cited a similar intention to retain a relationship with Shawbrook through Fignum, and it now intends to do the same with Close Brothers. This suggests that through its continued operational reform, Bluestone plans to dedicate more of its focus on developing its fintech business.
Aside from Fignum, Bluestone still retains ownership of its credit services business Bluestone Consumer Finance, which is not believed to be up for sale.
