Pepper makes a strong debut

Pepper Group made an auspicious debut on the Australian Securities Exchange on Friday, with strong growth in the share price and the announcement of a new loan servicing contract.

Pepper stock finished the day at A$3.30, up 26.9 per cent from the $2.60 offer price of the shares in the initial public offering.

The company announced it had been awarded a contract to service a A$5.6 billion loan portfolio recently acquired by Carval Investors and Goldman Sachs from Lloyds Banking Group.

The portfolio is made up of residential mortgages, commercial loans and unsecured loans. The loans will be serviced by Pepper's Irish subsidiary.

Pepper said the contract would generate about A$20 million of revenue over its four year life.

Pepper's loan servicing business has a total of A$24.4 billion of assets under management.