Further investment doubles the size of borrower services team
To keep pace with the growth in client numbers, we have continued to invest in our Borrower Services team who look after all aspects of client service once a borrower’s initial loan has drawn down. Over the last 18 months we have doubled the size of the overall team which is split into two areas: Relationship Management and Borrower Solutions.
The Relationship Management team is the primary point of contact for existing borrowers. Each borrower has a dedicated relationship manager who is on hand to support the borrower through the lifetime of their relationship with ThinCats. This covers areas such as helping the client with their reporting requirements, making regular client visits, and reviewing opportunities to support further growth and acquisitions. Around 30% of existing borrowers have benefited from additional funding, through increasing their original ThinCats facility.
We view our role very much as long-term partners to the businesses that we support, bringing an expectation that the proportion of borrowers taking additional facilities from us will increase further as our client base matures. The Relationship Management team is headed by Steve Ford who joined us last summer after 23 years’ corporate banking experience.
In line with having specialist origination and credit teams for private equity backed and healthcare clients, this model is replicated in relationship management where Rob Kelly looks after a portfolio of clients who are backed by PE sponsors and Mark Stuart is responsible for our healthcare clients. The Borrower Solutions team focuses on clients that may be experiencing a downturn in trading performance or facing other economic or financial challenges. This team looks to create solutions such as forbearance or restructuring of facilities to support the client to trade out of its difficulties.
The value of having a close relationship with our clients has been proven multiple times since the start of the Covid pandemic, where we were very quickly able to waive covenants and introduce other forbearance measures. As we became accredited for the government backed CBILS scheme, the depth of our relationships meant we could help our clients quickly assess their eligibility and fast-track the application process.
Looking forward, we have plans to invest further in our data and technology capabilities to complement our existing service offering. For example, our skills in data analytics – including our PRISM risk model – means we can compare the performance of our clients against other businesses either by sector, region, size or more than 200 other variables. We are keen to share this insight with our clients to help them better evaluate their business. Similarly, further investment in technologies such as open banking and open accounting will simplify the MI reporting process for borrowers.
We recognise that for ThinCats to succeed, it’s critical that our clients are successful too. Through increased investment in our Borrower Services team, we aim to remain close to our clients, better understand their ambitions for the future and become their business partner.
Not only are we better positioned to create highly bespoke additional facilities to accelerate their growth plans, but if they hit more challenging times, the quality of our relationship means we can take early steps to help them remedy the situation and provide additional support.
