Avant Will Slash More Jobs as Loan Volumes Shrink
Avant is preparing for a second round of layoffs in two months.
The beleaguered online lending industry has another victim and it’s Chicago-based personal loan lender Avant, again. The company said that it expects loan volume to fall by 50 percent and consecutively lay off some employees, without disclosing details.
This is a second wave of downsizing for the four year old lender. In May, the company slashed 60 jobs after its loan volume shrunk by 27 percent in the first quarter of this year. Avant also paused its auto loan refinancing program that it announced in March.
Bloomberg reported Avant spokeswoman Carolyn Blackman Gasbarra as saying, “As the lending industry faces continued uncertainty in the capital markets and volatility of the online lending category, we are moderating loan volume to focus on the immediate profitability of our core personal loan products…As such we have made the difficult decision to launch a voluntary severance offering to our employees.”
Avant is led by Al Goldstein who made a fortune in small dollar loans through his online subprime lending company Enova International that he started in 2004 and sold it two years later for $250 million. Avant has funded over $3 billion in personal unsecured loans so far.
Last modified: April 20, 2019
Srividya's work has appeared in publications like Money magazine, Advertising Age, FirstPost and The Economic Times. She has also dabbled in business intelligence solutions, and holds a Masters degree in Business and Economic Reporting from NYU. 
