Head of asset
finance: Bruce Wood
No. of partners
(assistants): 3 (5)
Key lessor
clients: Fortis Lease, BNP Paribas Lease Group,
Clydesdale Bank Asset Finance, GE Fleet Solutions, Lombard,
Barclays Asset & Sales Finance, ING Lease, Merchant Cash
Express Limited, Venture Finance
Key lease broker
clients: N/A
Key manufacturer
clients: Sun Microsystems Global Finance, Hitachi
Data Systems Finance
New clients gained in
2009: N/A
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“Pandemonium” was the way Bruce Wood, head of
asset finance at Glasgow-based firm Morton Fraser, described his
last few months of work. This, he said, is largely thanks to an
influx of invoice discounting deals – one for £70 million and
another for a whopping “nine-figure” sum – combined with a flurry
of car fleet deals for “major employers”. He has also seen in
recent weeks a number of “ship and aircraft deals going wrong which
have led to refinancings, repossessions or sales”.
In fact, for the first quarter of his latest
financial year (May 1 to August 1), he saw a department record of a
40 percent rise in new business. Meanwhile, year-end 2008 billings
were up 10 percent year-on-year, although this growth was less to
do with new deals and more related to recovery and refinancing
work.
Judging by the scale and volume of new deals
at the firm, you would be forgiven if you thought the recession had
never happened, although Wood assured Leasing Life last month that,
apart from the blip of recent weeks, the past year has been not
particularly out of the ordinary.
Clydesdale’s asset finance arm has been a
significant provider of interesting pieces of work, including an
£183 million disposal of leases and HP agreements, while it also
acted for Clydesdale’s parent, National Australia Bank, in its
disposal of £65 million of local authority operating lease residual
value receivables.
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By GlobalDataThere were nine other sellers, alongside NAB,
and only one buyer – Fortis Lease Group. The complex ran into
thousands of small and medium-sized deals, each documented
differently with various RVs.
Other deals that stand out include advising on
security provision for oil hedging agreements on behalf of Morgan
Stanley, and another security agreement for Amegy Bank National
Association for receivables linked to an oil supply contract
between an Algerian and US-backed joint venture and a Canadian oil
purchaser. It has also advised Fortis Lease in recent months on a
£250 million asset finance facility and the acquisition of £23
million of HP and credit sale agreements.
The Consumer Credit Directive, which is due to
be enforced in the UK in June 2010, is expected to be a sizeable
source of new work for the firm which already acts for the likes of
GE Fleet Services Limited. Bruce Wood’s team recently made all of
Northern Bank’s relevant documentation compliant with the
directive.
Litigation, which makes up 40 percent of the
firm’s work, looks set to grow since Morton Fraser brought in
Maggie Moodie to run asset finance and invoice finance litigation.
Moodie was previously the head of litigation at HBJ Gateley
Wareing.
Besides acting for Bank of Scotland in
relation to the Shire Leasing debacle (see earlier 2009 issues
of Leasing Life) and for the multiple financing scam involving
Global EPP, the department also advised on the administration of
Landsbanki-owned professionals insurer Key Finance Corporation,
which had £80 million of loans to solicitors and accountants when
it folded as a result of its parent’s recession-driven plight.
