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
The Commercial businesses lend principally to small and medium-sized enterprises, both through their direct sales force and via broker distribution channels. Their highly specialist sales force operates from offices throughout the UK, Ireland and Germany.
2022 Adjusted operating profit: £91.0 million (2021: £52.8 million)
Retail
The Retail businesses provide loans to predominantly individuals and small businesses, through a network of intermediaries.
2022 Adjusted operating profit: £61.0 million (2021: £71.9 million)
Property
The Property business specialises in short-term residential development finance through Property Finance, and also offers refurbishment and bridging loans through Commercial Acceptances.
2022 Operating profit: £75.2 million (2020: £87.8 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. Our clients range from mid to high net worth individuals.
2022 Adjusted operating profit: £21.7 million (2021: £23.7 million)
The Securities division comprises Winterflood, a leading UK market maker for retail stockbrokers and institutions, and Winterflood Business Services ("WBS") which provides outsourced dealing and custody solutions to over 50 corporate clients.
2022 Operating profit: £14.1 million (2021: £60.9 million)
Our purpose is to help the people and businesses of Britain thrive over the long term.
Our purpose is at the heart of our business and guides every decision we make. We take a long-term approach to managing our business.
Our distinctive culture and long-term approach are embedded throughout the organisation.
It combines our values of service, expertise and relationships with our ways of working: teamwork, integrity and prudence. These values ensure we continue to provide excellent service for our customers and clients over the long term, bringing out the best in our people and supporting our strong reputation.
To protect, grow and sustain our proven and resilient business model so that it continues to deliver in the long term.
Our responsibility to help address the social, economic and environmental challenges facing our business, employees, customers and clients, now and into the future.
We see this responsibility as a core part of our business and central to our success. It encourages us to look at how we operate our business more broadly, as we focus on achieving the best outcomes for our stakeholders and making a positive impact on the society and the environment we operate in.
Ensuring the right fit
These eight criteria are all factors that we consider when assessing growth opportunities. They capture the key strengths of our model and so by taking these into account, it ensures we are following a disciplined approach to growth and preserving the attributes that generate value for our shareholders.
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 2022)
Common equity tier 1 capital ratio
14.6
Net interest margin
7.8
Funding cover of loan book
127
Bad debt ratio
1.2
Grow
- Maximising opportunities available to us in the current environment
- Capitalising on cyclical opportunities in each business
- Extending our product offering and launching new initiatives
- Assessing opportunities for disciplined growth in new and existing markets
Key performance indicators (at 31 July 2022)
Loan book growth
5
Net inflows
5
Adjusted basic earnings per share
111.5
Sustain
- Promoting an inclusive culture and supporting new ways of working and social mobility
- Reducing our impact on the environment and responding to the threats and opportunities of climate change
- Promoting financial inclusion, helping borrowers that 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 2022)
Employee engagement
86
Dividend per share
66
Total Scope 1 and 2 emissions (market based)
2,438
Sustainability is fundamental to our purpose
Creating an inclusive culture where all colleagues are supported to thrive is fundamental to the continued success of our business. We value the expertise of our people in delivering excellent service and building long-lasting relationships with our customers, clients and partners based on trust and integrity.
We are signatories to a wide range of charters and commitments across a broad spectrum of inclusion themes and social enterprises, including the Race at Work Charter, the Social Mobility Pledge, the Women in Finance Charter and the Valuable 500. We partner with leading diversity organisations, including Stonewall and the Business Disability Forum, to help inform our thinking and subsequent actions. We continue to run inclusive leadership training sessions for our managers, senior managers and group executives, highlighting how actions and behaviours can shape our inclusive culture.
We have established new employee networks for Accessibility, Social Mobility, and Working Parents and Carers. We now have networks focused on each of our diversity and inclusion pillars. Each are chaired by an executive sponsor and take responsibility for driving our inclusion initiatives across the organisation.
Reducing our environmental impact and responding to the threats and opportunities of climate change.
We recognise the importance of addressing the threat of climate change, and our ongoing work to identify the risks and opportunities it poses to our business model remains a key area of focus for the group. We take our responsibility towards the environment seriously, and as a group we are supportive of the goals of the Paris Agreement, having recently signed up to the Net Zero Banking Alliance, committing to transition all operational and attributable GHG emissions from our lending and investment portfolios to align with pathways to net zero by mid-century.
Our efforts to reduce the impact of our operations on the environment continue at pace, and we strive to take actions that make a positive contribution to the world around us. Careful consideration of environmental factors and potential risks plays an integral role in the actions we take. We also recognise the important role we can play in supporting our customers on their transition to a low carbon economy and, as an example of this, we have recently set ourselves an ambition to finance £1.0 billion of battery electric vehicles in the next five year.
Promoting financial inclusion, helping borrowers that might be overlooked and enabling savers and investors to access financial markets and advice to plan for their future.
By aiming to create long-term value and a lasting, positive impact on society, engaging with local communities is integral to how we operate and conduct business. We build relationships based on quality and trust, sharing our specialist expertise to help our customers and clients plan, save and invest for the future.
We take great pride in understanding the needs of SMEs and our ability to help them achieve their goals and realise their ambitions. By helping SMEs thrive in local communities across the UK we support the creation of jobs and opportunities in regions that may otherwise be overlooked by larger and less specialist finance providers.
Supporting our customers, clients and partners in the transition towards more sustainable practices.
We take a long-term approach to managing our business, with an ambition to make a lasting positive impact, both now and into the future. As a financial services provider we recognise that we have a role to play in helping our customers and clients address the world’s social, economic and environmental challenges, and a responsibility to support them as they adapt to more sustainable practices.
We recognise that putting customers’ interests at the heart of our business is central to our success, and our purpose to help the people and businesses of Britain thrive is a fundamental commitment to our customers and clients over the long term. We continue to ensure we support them through unprecedented challenges, and looking to the future, we are committed to helping them realise their ambitions and adapt to a world that is uncertain but open to opportunities.
