Church Commissioners, who oversee the organisation’s mammoth £8.3 billion investment fund, said on Friday that they “are not as well placed as others” to take a deal forward.
It follows days of talks, spearheaded by the church, aimed at finding a group of buyers for Wonga’s £400 million loan book to prevent it falling into the hands of unscrupulous loan sharks.
While it was highly unlikely the church would have been directly involved in the purchase, it had been working to bring a consortium of non-government organisations and philanthropists to organise a buyout.
But the church said on Friday: “The Church Commissioners for England today also confirmed their non-participation in a potential buy-out of the UK loan book having concluded that they are not as well placed as others to take this forward.”
It added that “confidential approaches” may now be made by parties from the charitable and finance sectors for the loans.
The church was urged to get involved following intervention from MP Frank Field, who called on Archbishop of Canterbury Justin Welby to find “good people” to buy Wonga’s loan book.
Existing borrowers are thought to total around 200,000, and Mr Field said he feared they could be left at the mercy of money lenders and bailiffs who could purchase the debt at a knockdown price.
He said swift action by the…
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