Investment case
Specialism, expertise and discipline, with a strong historical track record
Our Businesses
Close Brothers is a leading UK merchant banking group providing lending, deposit taking, wealth management services and securities trading. We employ approximately 4,000 people predominantly in the UK and Ireland.
Commercial
Commercial lends to more than 28,000 small and medium-sized enterprises (“SMEs”) and 35,000 individuals through our in-house teams, where loans are originated via our direct sales force or introduced by third-party distribution channels.
Asset Finance provides commercial asset financing, hire purchase and leasing solutions for a diverse range of assets and sectors.
Invoice and Speciality Finance works with small businesses to provide debt factoring, invoice discounting and asset-based lending and includes some of our smaller specialist businesses.
2024 Adjusted operating profit: £89.5 million (2023: £15.9 million)
Retail
Retail provides finance to individuals and businesses through a network of intermediaries.
Motor Finance provides several products at point of sale in a dealership, or online via a broker, which allow consumers to buy vehicles from over 4,250 retailers in the UK and 650 in Ireland.
Premium Finance helps make insurance payments more manageable for people and businesses, by allowing them to spread the cost over fixed instalments. It works with c.1,300 insurance brokers in the UK and Ireland.
2024 Adjusted operating profit: £37.9 million (2023: £34.7 million)
Property
Property provides residential development finance, bridging finance and commercial development loans to experienced property developers and investors across mainland UK and Northern Ireland, through its two brands, Close Brothers Property Finance and Commercial Acceptances. Lends to c.700 professional property developers with a focus on small to medium-sized residential developments.
2024 Adjusted operating profit: £78.0 million (2023: £69.5 million)
Close Brothers Asset Management ("CBAM") is a leading, vertically integrated wealth manager, providing investment management and financial planning services to private clients in the UK. CBAM operates out of 15 offices with more than 170 investment professionals and c.870 employees.
2024 Adjusted operating profit: £12.2 million (2023: £15.9 million)
Winterflood is a leading UK liquidity provider, delivering high-quality execution services to over 500 stockbrokers, wealth managers, institutional investors and other market counterparties. It also provides corporate advisory services to investment trusts and institutional sales trading. Winterflood Business Services (“WBS”) provides outsourced dealing and custody solutions to over 60 corporate clients.
2024 Operating loss: £(1.7) million (2023 Operating profit: £3.5 million)
Strategic priorities
Protect
- Maintaining a strong capital, funding and liquidity position
- Consistently applying our prudent business model through our disciplined approach to underwriting and pricing
- Balancing investment needs and cost discipline
- Maintaining regulatory compliance, whilst enhancing operational and cyber resilience
Key performance indicators (at 31 July 2024)
Common equity tier 1 capital ratio
12.8
Net interest margin
7.4
Total funding as a percentage of loan book
128
Bad debt ratio, excluding Novitas
0.9
Grow
- Maximising opportunities available to us in the current environment and capitalising on cyclical opportunities in each business
- Extending our product offering and launching initiatives in line with our business model in new and existing markets
Key performance indicators (at 31 July 2024)
Loan book growth
6
Net inflows
8
Adjusted basic earnings per share
76.1
Return on average tangible equity
8.3
Sustain
- Promoting an inclusive culture and social mobility
- Ensuring our business model is sustainable for the long term
- Reducing our impact on the environment and responding to the threats and opportunities of climate change
- Promoting financial inclusion, helping borrowers who might be overlooked and enabling savers and investors to access financial markets and advice to plan for their future
- Supporting our customers, clients and partners in the transition towards more sustainable practices
Key performance indicators (at 31 July 2024)
Employee engagement
83
Dividend per share
0.0
Total Scope 1 and 2 emissions (market based)
2,579
Growing our business
Delivering disciplined growth by ensuring the right fit in line with our “Model Fit Assessment Framework”
The eight criteria are all factors that we consider when assessing growth opportunities. They capture the key strengths of our model, which means that by taking them into account we ensure we are following a disciplined approach to growth and preserving the attributes that generate value for our shareholders.
Stakeholder Engagement
We work hard to understand and meet the needs of our different stakeholder groups, engaging with them and adapting our service and offering to create value for them.
We undertake a comprehensive programme of stakeholder engagement and consider the feedback provided, embedding this in the decision-making process throughout the group.
With approximately 4,000 employees around the UK, in Ireland, the Channel Islands and Germany, we have a diverse and motivated workforce which delivers the highest levels of service to our customers, clients and partners. We are committed to the development of our colleagues, ensuring they are supported and engaged.
Listening to our colleagues enables us to build an engaged workforce, allowing us to develop and retain high levels of expertise. We are able to ensure we are considering the views of all colleagues and making sure everyone feels included.
Our long-term success depends on the strength of our relationships with customers, clients and partners, our specialist expertise and the maintenance of high standards of service. Central to all decision-making is doing the right thing for customers, clients and partners, by helping them access financial solutions to meet their needs across all market conditions. We engage with our customers throughout their end-to-end journey and actively seek their feedback.
Our business is supported by a broad range of suppliers, enabling us to provide high standards of service to our customers, clients and partners. We are focused on ensuring we have transparent and sustainable working relationships with our suppliers. Engagement is focused on driving an open and collaborative approach with our suppliers, as we work together to ensure services support us to meet our goals, whilst considering areas for improvement.
We are committed to sustaining high standards of business conduct in line with regulatory, governmental and legal expectations and
operate prudently within the laws and regulations that apply to us.
We foster an open, transparent and cooperative relationship with all our regulators, government authorities and trade associations in the jurisdictions in which we operate. Active engagement helps to ensure we are aware of and adapting to the evolving regulatory framework.
Close Brothers is committed to contributing lasting value and making a positive impact on the communities in which we operate and the
environment more broadly. This underpins the growing range of programmes and initiatives we support that benefit society and the environment.
Engaging with local communities helps the board and our employees develop their understanding of our clients, customers and partners so that we can support them and help them to achieve their ambitions, whilst also building employee engagement. We firmly believe that environmental considerations should form an integral part of our business decisions, and employees across the group are actively engaged on responsible behaviours and environmental issues.
Close Brothers has a proven and resilient business model and is focused on generating long-term, sustainable value for its investors, while also maintaining a strong balance sheet.
Our investors are the providers of capital to our business so it is important that we engage actively with them and listen and respond to their feedback through an established and comprehensive programme throughout the year.
