Carrick Asset Finance has been trading as a new company in the arena since October 1, but the road from its initial listing has been long. Christopher Marchant talks to director Gerard Moon about how the company came to be, and how it plans to provide for SMEs moving forward
Carrick was founded with support from the Bank of London and the Middle East (BLME).
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Moon explains: “We had a very strong previous relationship with BLME. They were looking to augment their corporate and middle-ticket leasing business, and we eventually reached an agreement that we would provide funding to the SME space.”
This startup asset finance company is based in Glasgow, and shares its name with an area of Scotland.
Glasgow is also the city in which Moon was chief executive officer of Fortis Lease, which grew an asset book from £600m (€676m) in 2002 up to £1.8bn by 2008.
Despite the importance of fast growth, Moon says Carrick will prioritise expansion at a measured pace. “We are not going to be a major player in the market during the next 12 months,” he explains.
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By GlobalData“Instead, we’re going to be a niche player: we are going to work with a selected number of targeted brokers that we’ve had a previous business relationship with.
“The reason we’re taking that sales approach is because we can then work with the brokers, understand what they do, and understand the business that they have in their portfolio that would suit the policies of Carrick. It’s our job to make sure that we are flexible in our approach and can provide a high level of service.”
Moon says Carrick is intended to be a “sales-centric” business: “Everything is about providing a good service to the brokers. Everyone at Carrick knows how to approach a broker: the salespeople at director level, who’ll be setting up the relationships with the brokers, and underwriters who have experience working in the asset-based finance industry.”
As well as Martin Stewart and Gary Slavin, the experienced team assembled at Carrick also includes director Iain Corbett.
His career includes just under seven years with Yorkshire and Clydesdale parent CYBG, as well as a brief stint as sales director at Haydock Asset Finance.
Like Slavin and Moon, he was part of Fortis’ leasing arm before the BNP Paribas acquisition. This is, therefore, a team with enough experience in the industry to approach the business from a complex variety of angles and be prepared enough to have the best chance of hitting the ground running.
Moon notes: “Most of the team has had more than 10 years of experience in the sector. With that you can build a high level of knowledge, you can assess a deal relatively quickly. That’s also why we’re working with a small group of brokers. The objective of that is to avoid getting deals maybe once or twice a year from a broker.”
The UK asset finance market has been booming in the past few years, attracting many new entrants; this has, however, also fueled fears that it could become overcrowded.
These are conditions that can both benefit and detract from being a new startup, but Moon is confident that Carrick has the right approach and strategy.
“We all know that this market has got a significant number of players, yet we also know that the market is always receptive to a new funder. The proof is in the pudding: the next six months will prove whether our decision to come into the market has been a good one, but we’re very confident.
“We’re also not setting our stall out to write huge volumes of business. We’re going in very cautiously, as we appreciate that we’re in a challenging political environment and therefore the underwriting policies will be judicious in that period. We’ll write business from £25,000 up to £3m, with a sweet spot of around £150,000.”
Carrick Asset Finance has taken the time to assess approach and strategy, ensuring that – in the words of Moon – it “can be nimble, can be choosy”.
Whatever the future holds, Moon is clear that responsibility and patience will be key to any company success.
