Allica Bank joins the faculty

Allica Bank’s growth finance team has become the latest firm to join the Corporate Finance Faculty. The fintech challenger bank started lending to SMEs across the UK in March 2020 and has since completed more than £2bn of lending, with 80% going to businesses outside London. Last year alone it loaned £820m to support UK businesses, with £230m lent to businesses investing in new equipment or machinery.

In Deloitte’s UK Technology Fast 50 for 2023, Allica took the prize for the fastest-growing company. And last year the bank launched its new growth finance lending product, designed specifically to provide flexible finance for growing businesses. The bank also offers business mortgages and asset finance, has three offices – in London, Milton Keynes and Manchester – and employs a team of relationship managers across the country. 

The bank has more than 500 employees. There are eight in the growth finance team, which is still heavily recruiting and expects to double in size before the end of 2024.

“We’ll continue to recruit people regionally so that they are close to the advisory community and businesses they are working with,” said Ian Flaxman, Allica’s head of growth finance. “Although we are a fintech and certainly a forward-thinking bank, we do not let technology get in the way of human relationships. Virtual meetings and calls are a helpful way to start a conversation because you can do them at much shorter notice, and we use proprietary technology for our operations, but we are still very much into doing things in person where it adds value, too. As you go into a deal, having a proper client relationship is absolutely critical to our approach.”

Team and offering

Flaxman joined as head of growth finance in July 2022, to build the team and offering ahead of its launch last year. He previously worked for Wyelands Bank on working capital solutions, and before that spent five years with HSBC in London in global trade and receivables finance. He was also previously head of structured finance at Aldermore Bank, a strategic director at Credit Agricole Commercial Finance and prior to that spent nearly 20 years working in invoice finance at Yorkshire Bank.

To date, Allica’s growth finance team has loaned cash to businesses to fund acquisitions and finance restructurings. Although it does not restrict the sectors it lends to, the focus of the team tends to be on manufacturing, business services and wholesalers, “largely because those are the businesses that have more of a working capital requirement as part of their funding need”, said Flaxman. 

In September 2023, Karl Holmes joined the growth finance team as senior sales manager from K3 Debt Advisory, where he spent almost two years and was a managing director. He previously worked for Cadence Advisory, Artic Building Services, Lloyds Bank and PNC Business Credit. He started his career with Deloitte, where he trained as an ACA, before joining Baker Tilly’s restructuring and recovery team.

On joining the faculty

“We first got involved with the Corporate Finance Faculty because of Karl’s wider involvement with the Institute, as he is a chartered accountant,” said Flaxman. “At Allica, one of our key focus areas for the immediate future is working with corporate financiers and the accountancy profession – so there’s a lot of value in being a member.

“Our visibility in the corporate finance advisory world is very important. Our growth finance product will be most valuable in corporate finance transactions. By being a member of the faculty, as well as being more visible, we can stay appraised of what’s going on – where the pain points are, where the opportunities are, how the market is evolving. With the benefit of that information and knowledge, we can continue to adapt so that we meet the needs of businesses and the advisory community.”

Technical committee changes

EY associate partner Chris Jarvill (1) has taken over as chair of the Corporate Finance Faculty’s technical committee from Yvette Allen (2). Jarvill has served on the committee for several years. He works in transaction advisory services. 

Allen, who leads Deloitte’s technical team within transaction advisory services, had been chair of the committee for five years and is also a member of the Corporate Finance Faculty board. 

“I’ve always felt a belonging and affinity with the team and am sad to leave it,” said Allen. “I’ve met some really clever, committed and interesting people and participated in some great work, all brilliantly facilitated by Katerina Joannou and David Petrie.”

Of her time in the chair, she said there were many challenging times: “The period of uncertainty in the run-up to Brexit in January 2020, then obviously COVID-19, presented major challenges to M&A for most of 2020. We then considered the impact of a post-COVID M&A boom in 2021 and 2022, and had a major input into the National Security and Investment Act that came into force in January 2022. The Edinburgh reforms, which were announced at the end of 2022, and the current major regulatory change flowing from that, have taken a huge amount of consideration from the capital markets working group and will continue to do so for some time.”

And looking forward, she outlined the key challenges the committee faces: “Capital markets reform will keep us busy for at least the next 18 months. In terms of new challenges, generative AI and how to use it in M&A, in the context of the requirements for strict confidentiality of commercially sensitive information, not to mention data protection legislation, will be right up there with the challenges. And once the challenges of commercial sensitivity and data privacy have been solved, of course there is the challenge of working out the next evolution of professional services enhanced by AI. 

“The legal profession is starting to get to grips with this and I’m sure ICAEW members will need to tackle it, too.”

UK government consultations

The Corporate Finance Faculty invites member comments and views on two government proposals announced by the Chancellor in last month’s budget.

PISCES consultation

A new platform, the Private Intermittent Securities and Capital Exchange System (PISCES), will allow private companies to trade their securities in a controlled environment and on an intermittent basis.

Comments should be submitted to Katerina Joannou by 12 April.

UK ISA consultation

The design and implementation of a UK ISA. The new £5,000 allowance, in addition to the existing ISA allowance, will provide a new tax-free savings opportunity for people to invest in the UK.

Comments should be submitted to Katerina Joannou by 31 May.

In brief

• The Corporate Finance Faculty’s annual general meeting will be held at Chartered Accountants’ Hall on 20 June. The meeting starts at 12:30 with lunch, followed by the presentation of a review of the faculty’s work over the past year by ICAEW head of corporate finance, David Petrie, and faculty chairman Alistair Brew. They will also set out the priorities for the faculty for the rest of this year and into 2025. Members can book a place here.

• Last month, ICAEW head of corporate finance, David Petrie, attended the Oxford Policy Forum hosted by Oxford Saïd Business School and Goldman Sachs on behalf of the Corporate Finance Faculty. The discussion centred on the Goldman Sachs recent report Generation Growth: The Small Business Manifesto. The research revealed that more than one-third of the 550 business respondents were unable to gain access to growth capital. The forum also looked at the policy landscape affecting the availability of growth finance for SMEs. 

• ICAEW head of corporate finance David Petrie attended an Investing in Innovation meeting, hosted by Viscount Camrose at the House of Commons last month. Under discussion was IP finance, and alongside Viscount Camrose, speakers included Adam Williams, CEO of the UK IP Office; and Daren Tang, Director General of the World Intellectual Property Organisation.