Leasing World article - 13th March 2009

1. HBOS asset finance dies, but the DNA lives on?
Leasing World article - 13th March 2009Many of us have followed the HBOS disaster unfolding, like an old newsreel of the Hindenburg airship, bursting into flames, and slowly crashing to the ground. It was well known that HBOS was also the possessor of a vast leasing and asset finance empire, built on the powerhouses of leasing’s early days, like Capital Bank and NWS, with a book of £20 billion, apparently.


Word was in the market that hundreds of their asset finance people were being made redundant. Strange, one thought at the time, because surely Lloyds TSB should have been interested in this store of experience and market knowledge. And then there was the thought, what happens after a leasing company that large implodes, where do all those people go, where do all those customers go?


Well one example of what can happen is T & L Leasing Ltd, founded by three ex-HBOS experts who between them have fifty years of leasing experience, Phil Snewin, Paul Lewis, and Darren Hallmark. In a very short time (since 2nd January 2009) they have funded 28 transactions, and have a work-in-progress of some £60 million. These days finding funding is said to be the problem, but they have found 15 funders to work with, often smaller financial institutions, with an appetite for good business, but sometime with limited distribution channels.


In an exclusive conversation with LeasingWorld, Phil Snewin told us, “We are using the vast amount of knowledge we acquired over the years with Capital Bank, and HBOS, and are continuing to do business in the same tradition, but as an independent operator. You could think of us as part of the DNA of those companies, they fall by the wayside, but the DNA carries on.” T & L Leasing solves customers’ “wheeled” problems with operating lease, finance lease, and hire purchase solutions. Nothing new there, one might say, but when applied with so much knowledge of the market, focusing primarily, but not exclusively, on non-haulage companies, where a long relationship already exists, and funding through smaller funders, T & L Leasing’s business model is working.


“We see the market creating many more niche players like ourselves, for us the immediate challenge is to give our fledgling company a sound footing, after which we can move onto own-book business.” The company’s offices are based, coincidentally, only a stone’s throw from the old HBOS Corporate Training Centre, in a charming building once in the ownership of the Duke of Westminster.

 

To see more information about T & L Leasing, see their website at www.tl-leasing.co.uk

We will make the complex simple.

<< Back to Testimonials