after Power buy out
In recent weeks, Power Leasing Ltd, the UK lessor and broker,
has been acquired by WestWon Capital, an education finance
specialist company.
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Jeremy Hall, WestWon’s chief executive officer, told Leasing
Life there were two main reasons for acquiring the company.
“The first was the end-user lessee base,” he says. “It was
particularly interesting during the due diligence process to notice
some of the customer files originated in the early 1980s – and
there was a strong history of repeat business.
“The second key reason is that I proactively wish to move away
from financing of office equipment assets. Nearly all of the new
business being introduced to Power Leasing over the past few years
comes from a variety of sectors in which I have had little
exposure.”
Power Leasing was formed in 1976 and operated as an IT leasing
broker, but also, latterly, in the laboratory instrumentation,
healthcare equipment and environmental asset-funding sectors.
Hall founded Wyse Leasing as a computer software brokerage in
1989, a time when most of the major lessors were reluctant to touch
IT, especially after the Atlantic Leasing debacle.
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By GlobalDataAfter studying as an accountant and spending some time in the
software industry, Hall spotted a market niche and found
underwriters – including Woodchester Leasing – willing to fund the
new Wyse operation.
In 2006, the northern part of Wyse Leasing – of which Hall had a
50 per cent shareholding – was sold to the management and external
private investors. Shortly afterwards, it changed its name to
Bluestone Leasing. Hall retains a major shareholding in Wyse
Leasing plc, which comprises those elements of the Wyse Group not
sold with Wyse Leasing North – although he is not a board director
or employee. He formed Software Leasing Ltd later in 2006 and
subsequently formed WestWon Capital after winning several
non-software related accounts.
“The name WestWon,” he says, “came about after I had a period of
time working out of an office in London’s West End [which had a W1
postcode]. The name West stands for ‘Wyse established second time’
and Won is a play on words for success and winning.”
Restrictive covenants mean Hall will not conflict with what
Bluestone Leasing is doing in the north of the UK and Wyse Leasing
plc in the south – predominantly, funding office equipment.
In January 2007, he formed Lease and Learn, an education
division within WestWon that works within the education sector.
This is principally with Steljes, the audio-visual distributor, to
provide leasing for SMARTBoard interactive whiteboards and
TurningPoint audience response systems.
Hall says: “Steljes is the exclusive representative of SMART
Technologies Inc in the UK and has increased its UK market share
from 54.7 per cent in Q4 2006 to 59.2 per cent in Q1 2007. It has
installed more than 200,000 interactive whiteboards into UK
classrooms.”
As the UK interactive whiteboard sector develops, Hall expects
WestWon to move into other commercial opportunities offered by the
Government’s e-Learning Foundation, which, since 2001, has granted
£8m to UK schools to support home-access programmes. These include
opportunities such as the provision of Personal Digital Assistants
(PDA) for schoolchildren to use at school and at home.
Hall predicts WestWon’s staff will increase to seven by the end
of 2007 as it seeks to grow organically and by acquisition. He is
seeking more leasing staff with industry experience and is also
looking to buy portfolios with the “correct profile”. Future
opportunities are likely to include lease broking in the recycling
and waste management sectors. There are no plans for the company to
start writing its own leasing book.
Hall stresses that, since the establishment of WestWon,
relationships with existing funders – “which include most of the
major finance companies” – are excellent and “they have been very
supportive over recent months”.
