It will be business as usual at the Bluestone Group following its announcement that the UK private equity investor LDC, which is part of Lloyds Banking Group, had made a "substantial investment" in the company.Bluestone's general manager for the Asia Pacific, Campbell Smyth, said LDC had given its backing to the current management team and was not looking for changes in the way the business was being run.This means that Bluestone can push ahead with its two-pronged strategy: to secure funding to revive the non-conforming lending business it operated before the financial crisis; and to continue to develop its asset management business, which involves acquiring distressed debt portfolios and then servicing those loans.Bluestone did not disclose the size of LDC's stake, or the price it paid, but the Australian Financial Review reported that some investors would exit their holdings, and others, including Macquarie Group and Bluestone founder Alistair Jeffery, would reduce their holdings.Last year, Macquarie provided Bluestone with a warehouse funding facility, allowing it to start writing loans in Australia for the first time since July 2008.Bluestone also re-entered the securitisation market last year, with a A$153 million issue of mortgage-backed securities in Australia, in December, and a NZ$65 million issue in New Zealand earlier in the year. At its peak, the group had a loan portfolio worth about A$3 billion. Today it is worth about $750 million.Total assets, including its own loans, acquired portfolios and third-party loan assets on its servicing platforms, are worth £35.6 million.Smyth said Bluestone has originated about A$10 million of loans since the Macquarie facility was put in place. The group is working on funding deals in New Zealand and the United Kingdom that will allow it to originate in those markets.He said the group's current focus was to get the origination business up and running again.Jeffery, who is the company's executive chairman, said present conditions in the loan market were not unlike those that prevailed in 2000, when the company was established. Jeffery said: "Big lenders dominate the market, and borrowers with standard requirements are well looked after. There is demand for non-conforming loans. We think the non-conforming sector can get back to the four or five per cent share it had before the financial crisis."