Skip to main content

Investment case

Specialism, expertise and discipline, with a strong historical track record

Download our Investment Case

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 small and medium-sized enterprises (“SMEs”) through our direct sales force and third-party distribution channels.

    Asset Finance provides commercial asset financing, hire purchase and leasing solutions for a diverse range of assets and sectors to over 28,000 customers.

    Invoice and Speciality Finance works with c.6,000 small businesses to provide debt factoring, invoice discounting and asset-based lending and includes some of our smaller specialist businesses

    2023 Adjusted operating profit: £15.9 million (2022: £91.0 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 4,200 retailers in the UK. 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 1,400 insurance brokers in the UK and Ireland.

    2023 Adjusted operating profit: £34.7 million (2022: £61.0 million)

    Property

    Property provides short-term residential development finance for experienced professionals through Property Finance and offers refurbishment and bridging loans through Commercial Acceptances. Lends to c.700 professional property developers with a focus on small to medium-sized residential developments.

    2023 Operating profit: £69.5 million (2022: £75.2 million)

    Close Brothers Asset Management ("CBAM") is a vertically integrated top-20 UK wealth manager, providing financial advice and investment management services to private clients in the UK. CBAM operates out of 13 offices with more than 150 investment professionals and c.780 employees.

    2023 Adjusted operating profit: £15.9 million (2022: £21.7 million)

    Winterflood is a leading market maker, delivering high-quality execution services to approximately 600 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.

    2023 Operating profit: £3.5 million (2022: £14.1 million)

     

     

    Business Model

    Close Brothers has a proven and resilient business model, delivering excellent service in niche sectors we know and understand.

     

    Download Business Model pdf

    The Foundations of our Success Enable us to Deliver on our Purpose:

    To help the people and businesses of Britain thrive over the long term.

    Our Culture

    Combines expertise,
    service and relationships
    with teamwork, integrity
    and prudence.

    Our Strategy 

    To provide exceptional
    service to our customers
    and clients across
    lending, savings, trading
    and wealth management. 

    Our Responsibility

    To help address the
    social, economic and
    environmental challenges
    facing our business,
    employees and clients,
    now and into the future.

    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 2023)

    Common equity tier 1 capital ratio

    13.3

    Net interest margin

    7.7

    Funding cover of loan book

    130

    Bad debt ratio

    2.2

    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 2023)

    Loan book growth

    5

    Net inflows

    9

    Adjusted basic earnings per share

    55.1

    Sustain

    • Promoting an inclusive culture and supporting new ways of working 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 2023)

    Employee engagement

    86

    Dividend per share

    67.5

    Total Scope 1 and 2 emissions (market based)

    1,998

    Download our KPIs

    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.

      Employees-opt

      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.

      Environment

      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.

      Community-v2

      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 and transparent 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.

      Customers

      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.

      Customers

      Close Brothers has a proven and resilient business model and is focused on generating ong-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.

      Customers