Funding Circle founder Samir Desai shrugs off difficult market debut

Funding Circle boss Samir Desai came out fighting today as he defended the peer-to-peer lender’s decision to float.

It went public on October 3 but its shares immediately plummeted below its 440p float price as investors believed it was overpriced.

Desai says it was unlucky to float before a heavy market correction but believes it was the right call.

He said: “If you look at the long-term value the shares are cheap. They’ll bob up and down. We floated before a market correction when investors were cycling out of tech stocks like Google, Amazon and Facebook.”

The shares today rose 24.5p to 434.5p after it put out an update showing loans under management were £2.8 billion on September 30, up 61% compared with last year.