Pepper to hire 100 people as assets under management surpass €20bn

Pepper Ireland is to take on an additional 100 staff this year as assets under management surpass €20 billion for the first time.

The mortgage company said it has already commenced recruitment with headcount set to reach 600 people by the end of 2022.

“With over 500 employees, the Irish business continues to be integral to our global ambitions, and is home to a lot of the expertise and experience we will leverage to expand into new markets and services, and in the development of new cloud-based data and analytics,” Pepper said in a statement.

The recruitment drive comes as the Irish unit’s immediate parent Pepper European Servicing this week rebranded to Pepper Advantage. The move is due to the integration of the group’s European and Asian servicing businesses, and as it focuses on investing in a cloud-based data and analytics platform with a view to expanding its offering.

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The company said it will also continue to expand its profile of assets under management to include personal loans, including retail and buy now, pay later (BNPL) financing as well as other receivables from different industries.

Pepper, which entered the Irish market in 2012, is a credit management firm and the largest mortgage servicer to banks and financial institutions locally with more than 80,000 loans serviced across all asset classes.

Among the mandates Pepper is servicing are the Glenbeigh II portfolio, a €1.4 billion buy-to-let portfolio sold by PTSB to Citibank in 2020, and the €1.1 billion loan book sold by KBC to private equity firm CarVal, which completed last month.

About 80 per cent of the company’s residential mandates are performing loans, Pepper said.

The integrated Pepper Advantage business will have more than $55 billion (€50 billion) of assets under management, approximately 1,100 employees and 570,000 end-user customers in addition to more than 1 million end-user customers served since it was founded a decade ago.

Pepper Advantage is part of Pepper Group, which is 60 per cent owned by KKR. Pepper Group was founded in 2000 as a financial services start-up in Australia specialising in mortgage lending and loan servicing.

A proposed €200 million sale of the group's Irish business to Link Group was terminated last year, after the financial services administrator pulled out of deal.

Pepper Ireland recorded revenues of €50.1 million in 2020 with pretax profits totalling €13.8 million.

The Irish subsidiary late last year announced plans to recommence commercial lending due to more favourable market conditions and new opportunities here.