We review Buy to Lease’s unregulated car investment paying 8 – 12% per year

Rent To Lease Limited, an offshoot of car supplier and credit broker Get Me Car Finance Limited, is offering investment in leased cars to investors paying up to 12% per year as follows:

• 8%pa for investments of £10k – £15k
• 9% for investments of £15k – £30k
• 10% for £30k – £50k
• 11% for £50k – £100k
• 12% for investments over £100k

A “special offer” on Buy To Lease’s website raises the offered rate of return for investments over £10k to 10% “while the coronavirus lockdown is in force”.

This is a pretty tasteless variation on FOMO (Fear Of Missing Out) time-limited marketing. It’s a global pandemic killing tens of thousands of British people, not a bank holiday. And FOMO marketing is highly dubious for any high-risk investment anyway (investors should not be pressured into making a decision).

Investors’ money is used to buy a car from Buy To Lease, which is then immediately loaned back to Get Me Car Finance, which in turn lends the car to one of its customers. Get Me Car Finance “guarantees” both to pay the offered return, and to repay the investor’s capital even if the car is lost / stolen / destroyed.

While Get Me Car Finance is FCA-regulated as a credit broker, its investment scheme is not. Get Me Car Finance has no authorisation to run a collective investment scheme.

Who are Buy To Lease / Get Me Car Finance?

Buy To Lease is run by founder Myles Cunliffe.

The main business entity is Getmefinance Limited, which was incorporated in 2010, and is backing the “guarantee” to repay the investor’s capital. Getmefinance’s last accounts show net assets of £52k (£212k assets minus £160k creditors). Due to its small size, the accounts were unaudited and contained very little information.

How safe is the investment?

Buy To Lease claims its investment is “a simple, safe way to earn GREAT RETURNS”.

However, ultimately investors are not investing in a car, but in Get Me Car Finance itself. That means they are investing in an extremely small company with net assets of only £10k according to its last accounts. If the end-user does not make sufficient repayments to fund the investor’s returns of up to 12% per year after Get Me Car Finance’s own costs, and the car cannot be sold for enough to make up the difference (cars depreciate notoriously quickly in value), the investor is relying on Get Me Car Finance to pay their interest and capital.

Investment in a tiny company with only £10k in net assets is not, by any stretch of the imagination, “safe”.

Should I invest with Buy To Lease / Get Me Car Finance?

This blog does not give financial advice. The following are statements of publicly available facts or widely accepted investment principles, not a personalised recommendation. Investors should consult a regulated independent financial adviser if they are in any doubt.

As with any investment in a tiny unlisted company, this investment is only suitable for sophisticated and/or high net worth investors who have a substantial existing portfolio and are prepared to risk 100% loss of their money.

Any investment offering up to 12% per annum yields should be considered very high risk. As an investment in an individual micro-cap company with a risk of total and permanent loss, Buy To Lease is much higher risk than a mainstream diversified stockmarket fund.

Before investing investors should ask themselves:

• How would I feel if the investment defaulted, Get Me Car Finance did not have the money to back its “guarantee”, and I lost 100% of my money?
• Do I have a sufficiently large portfolio that the loss of 100% of my investment would not damage my lifestyle?

If you are looking for a “safe” or “guaranteed” investment, you should not invest in securities offered by micro-cap companies with a risk of 100% loss.

If you are looking for an FCA-regulated investment, you should invest in mainstream FCA-authorised collective investments, not unregulated investments run by car loan brokers.