FOUR SENIOR managers at Start Mortgages, the State’s biggest subprime lender at the height of the property boom, are leaving the company following the sale of their shares in the company.

Chief executive David Ingram, chief financial officer Niall Corish, head of risk Paul Murphy and head of treasury Deirdre Barry are departing in the wake of UK mortgage lender Kensington’s acquisition of the 28 per cent of Start that it did not own. A spokesman said that they would leave the business over the coming months.

Kensington, which is owned by South African bank Investec, bought out the management in October 2010.

A spokesman for Start declined to say how much they received for their shareholding. Dermot Nutley will take over as chief executive.

Start employs 62 staff and has mortgages of €1 billion. It entered the Irish market in 2004. It is the only lender out of the six that operated in subprime lending during the boom years that is still offering new mortgages to customers.

GE Money, Nua, Fresh and Stepstone all closed for new business in 2008 followed by Springboard Mortgages, Irish Life and Permanent’s subprime lender, in 2009.

Start moved into conventional prime lending in 2009 after the mainstream lenders started to withdraw from the market as a result of the global financial crisis.

It has provided mortgages to more than 11,000 customers.

Start is one of the most active lenders to seek repossession orders in the High Court. It secured the largest number of repossession orders in the first three months of this year, according to figures compiled by The Irish Times in April.

More than a third of the 117 orders granted in the first quarter were secured by Start.

The company’s spokesman said the figures were not an accurate reflection of the full scale of repossession as other lenders applied for such orders in circuit courts, which were not as closely followed.