Aldermore secures £40m funding

Toscafund is chaired by Sir George Mathewson, former chief executive of Royal Bank of Scotland, while Lansdowne Partners is one of Europe’s biggest hedge funds.

Aldermore said the new funding will allow the bank, which launched in 2009, to establish a wider dialogue with UK institutional investors as it continues to review its capital markets strategy, which may include an initial public offering.

The bank also said the fundraising will help it “to continue to meet the strong demand” for its accounts and services from both retail customers and small to medium-sized enterprises (SMEs).

A spokesman for Aldermore said last night: “Yorkshire is vitally important to Aldermore and we have a strong and growing customer base there, with thousands of consumers and hundreds of SMEs working with us in Yorkshire alone. This makes up an important part of the 140,000 accounts held by our customers nationally.”

Aldermore said it now has more than 100,000 retail customers, with deposits exceeding £3.3bn and lending to SMEs and homeowners reaching £3.4bn.

The bank recorded a profit of £9.2m in the six months to the end of June last year, compared with £1m a year previously. The bank reported a 34 per cent increase in gross lending to £2.7bn.

Aldermore said this week it is expecting to post greater returns for the year end.

Former Barclays executive Phillip Monks, chief executive and founder of Aldermore, said: “I am delighted by the investor appetite for Aldermore and eager to continue to provide straightforward financing solutions to UK SMEs and households. The new funds provide us with the opportunity to do even more to champion Britain’s small businesses, the lifeblood of our economy.

“Our strong capital position also enables us to look at a number of new product and service launches to further meet the needs of our customers. I would like to thank all our investors for the confidence they have shown in Aldermore as we strive to do things differently.”

Aldermore also said that this investment will further strengthen its position as one of Britain’s most strongly capitalised banks.

The Aldermore spokesman added: “Our big challenge now is how we continue to provide the exceptional service to customers that has ultimately driven our rapid growth since we launched in 2009.

“The investment in Aldermore announced this week by Toscafund and Lansdowne Partners, in addition to our existing supportive shareholders AnaCap, will enable us to continue to grow and deliver a bank that supports SMEs and ordinary people across the UK.”

Toscafund, an alternative asset manager based in London, was founded in 2000 and is part of the Old Oak Group, a diversified financial services business.

Lansdowne Partners is an alternative investment management organisation which was founded in 1998 and is also based in London.

The new funding was initiated and managed by Aldermore’s founding sponsor, AnaCap Financial Partners, a specialist private equity investor in the financial services sector.

Toscafund and Lansdowne Partners will join other institutional investors Morgan Stanley Alternative Investment Partners, Goldman Sachs Asset Management, Ohio Public Employees Retirement System and Honeywell Capital Management as investors.

Credit Suisse acted as sole placement agent in connection with the capital raise with Norton Rose Fulbright acting as legal coun- sel.

Aldermore reported in May last year that it recorded profits of £759,000 in 2012, against losses of £899,000 the year before.