Investment case
Specialism, expertise and discipline, with a strong historical track record
Our Businesses
Close Brothers is a specialist banking group providing lending, deposit taking and securities trading. We employ approximately 3,000 people, principally in the United Kingdom and Ireland. Close Brothers Group plc is listed on the London Stock Exchange.
Commercial
Commercial lends to more than 28,000 small and medium-sized enterprises (“SMEs”) 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.
2025 Adjusted operating profit: £112.2 million (2024: £97.0 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 4,250 retailers in the UK and 650 retailers in Ireland.
Premium Finance works with c.1,300 insurance brokers in the UK and Ireland and helps make insurance payments more manageable for people and businesses, by allowing them to spread the cost over fixed instalments.
2025 Adjusted operating profit: £18.9 million (2024: £37.9 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.
2025 Adjusted operating profit: £67.2 million (2024: £78.0 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.
2025 Operating profit: £0.3 million (2024 Operating loss: £(1.7) million)
On 25 July 2025, the group announced an agreement to sell Winterflood to Marex.
Simplify
An in-depth review and repositioning of our portfolio of businesses has sharpened our focus on specialist banking.
Simplified group structure
- During the last year, we have sold Close Brothers Asset Management, Winterflood and the Brewery Rentals business.
- This simplifies our portfolio and allows us to focus on the core lending businesses, where we can leverage our expertise and deliver growth and sustainable returns.
- We have settled the long-standing litigation issued by Novitas, allowing us to move forward and exit from this business.
Realignment of existing activities with core business model
- During the 2025 financial year, we have repositioned our Premium Finance business to focus on commercial lines.
- We sold our Brewery Rentals business and decided to exit of our Vehicle Hire business.
- These actions have created a portfolio of businesses with a strong strategic fit. We are confident in the enduring growth opportunity across our core markets, focusing on areas that offer attractive risk-adjusted returns.
Optimise
Implementing a step-change in operating profitability.
Group-wide cost reduction actions
- An in-depth review of costs across the group will create a more efficient organisation.
- We delivered £25 million of annualised cost savings by the end of the 2025 financial year through streamlining of our technology, suppliers, property and workforce.
- We are committed to delivering at least c.£20 million of additional annualised savings per annum in each of the next three years, through further consolidation of centrally provided functions, outsourcing and offshoring, and the simplification and rationalisation of technology, including automation and the use of artificial intelligence.
A leaner, more agile organisation well positioned for the future
- We continue to build on the progress from our technology transformation, initiated in 2023, focused on simplifying and modernising our technology estate, as well as consolidating and increasing our use of strategic partners. This has helped create a more digitally enabled and agile IT environment that is secure, resilient and sustainable.
- In parallel, we are actively evaluating opportunities to optimise capital, funding and liquidity.
Grow
Using our strong market positions, reputation and specialist expertise to target growth in the segments where we can truly differentiate.
We are actively pursuing targeted growth opportunities in our chosen markets which offer attractive risk-adjusted returns.
- In Commercial, there are significant opportunities to expand lending in a number of our mature businesses, especially Invoice Finance, Energy, and intermediated Asset Finance.
- We are expanding distribution in Motor Finance through growth in the Irish market, and with larger partners and brokers.
- We have a renewed focus on growing our commercial lines business in Premium Finance.
Expanding our product offering to target new areas of growth
- Motor Finance is targeting opportunities through digitisation, and has expanded its offering to Alternative Fuel Vehicles (“AFVs”) to access the rapidly growing market of second-hand EVs and hybrid vehicles.
- Commercial is expanding into adjacent products, such as commercial mortgages, and is focused on scaling new, specialist teams such as agriculture.
- Property Finance is broadening its product offering, moving into larger build-to-sell loans and additional asset classes, such as build-to-rent and purpose-built student accommodation.
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 3,000 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.
