Local wealth management company Tier One Capital and its sister companies, Cascade Cash Management and the TOC Property Backed Lending Trust are progressing well across three of an intended four core divisions of the growing group.
The Wealth Management division is hiring an additional seven staff to bolster the in-house infrastructure and capability of the team. The new hires will allow internal legal work to bring an additional responsiveness for borrowers and quicker transaction turnaround, will bring internal corporate finance expertise to aid financial reporting and data room management and will see additional experienced client servicing and operational support join the existing team. To also bolster distribution, and respond to the predominantly city based fund management industry requiring people to be closely located to the larger funds, Tier One Capital are closing in on opening additional satellite offices in Mayfair, London and Lausanne, Switzerland near Geneva.
Cascade Cash Management has recently added five staff to help the existing team cope with an increasing workload driven by the hugely successful delivery of the first phase of the company’s unique cash management platform. This positions the company in a particularly competitive place for SME’s, charities and larger corporates alike due to the innovative cash optimisation process employed across well over 1,000 onshore and offshore rates daily from over 170 live banking and building society counter-parties.
The recently launched TOC Property Backed Lending Trust, a predominantly income focussed investment trust listed on the main
market of the London Stock Exchange, has now successfully deployed all of the £21.5m held by the trust within the first five months of the launch. Another market placing is due in July 2017 where the expected pipeline of c£1.5m will see the Trust grow to c£23m. Fund manager Stephen Black explains “Above and beyond the fund volume continuing to pleasingly nudge up, the next placing will see the Trust importantly gain its first city funding through investment allocations from two large regional wealth managers. We’ve only recently launched with the kind support of our existing clients and being based from the Quayside in Newcastle, and also having not previously been fund managers, we’re keen to quickly break through the impression of kind of being city outsiders. The quick deployment of capital comfortably within the agreed parameters of the Trust married to the recent uptake from the two regional wealth managers will provide others with growing comfort that the Trust is here to stay and worth allocating to.”
What next then for the fourth division to complement the other three? Never shy of a challenge, the team are about to embark upon the hugely exciting prospect of applying for a new banking licence and have now appointed the banking licence teams of KPMG and Gowling WLG to act for them on the accountancy and legal fronts respectively as the application progresses. “We’ve been working towards this opportunity for about three years now and have sequentially brought through the wealth management operation, sectioned off the non-traditional savings delivered by the cash management operation into a standalone entity and recently effectively achieved the same for non-traditional lending in listing the TOC Property Backed Lending Trust.” Explains Ian McElroy “On a higher level, the existing three operations give superb access to clients through Tier One Capital, access to saving infrastructure through Cascade and access to lending infrastructure through the TOC Property Backed Lending Trust. It’s therefore a natural next step to bring through a traditional savings and loans business model which will serve to create a virtuous circle where each division of the team complements and adds value to the other three”.
“If we put aside for a moment the fact a new banking licence is exceptionally difficult to attain and will require a huge effort, and no short amount of capital, to even have a chance at successfully achieving a positive application, we think a new banking entity would be a great strategic addition to the wider group. To be able to do this locally would be both the culmination of many years hard work from the team and also a dream come true. As a locally based team, we strongly feel that in the aftermath of Northern Rock, its hugely important for the area to bring through new banks capable of lending and supporting local borrowers and development opportunities.” says Stephen Black. “It’s been a highly productive few years for the team in building out what we have delivered thus far and, because applying for a new banking licence is a particularly difficult task, the only thing that’s certain whilst embarking on the banking project is that if we do manage to hit it out of the park and deliver it, the team will be enjoying an extended period of consolidation thereafter whilst they have a well deserved rest!”
