Wyelands, the financial services pillar of Sanjeev Gupta’s GFG Alliance, has announced that Wyelands Capital has made a number of strategic investments and senior appointments to drive forward its rapid development as a financial services provider.
Wyelands is a group of financial services entities including the independently-held and managed Wyelands Bank PLC. Wyelands sits alongside metals and industrial business, Liberty House, energy, infrastructure and resources group, SIMEC, and property company, JAHAMA, as one of the four key pillars of the US$12billion turnover international GFG Alliance.
Wyelands Capital has acquired London-based worldwide insurance solutions provider Trans-World Credit Corporation, which becomes a full member of the GFG Alliance.
The Trans-World team has a broad track record in the provision of insurance broking services, particularly within the field of political and trade credit underwriting. The acquired business will be the lead broker for trade credit risk insurance for members of the GFG Alliance globally as well as working towards the creation of a captive insurance programme.
The team’s first key project within Wyelands Capital will be to launch phase one of a new online proprietary platform designed to streamline and accelerate the process of assessing requests for credit insurance.
Wyelands Capital has also announced it has entered into a strategic partnership with Demica, one of the world’s largest working-capital Fintechs, to provide inventory finance to global commodity producers and traders. As part of this partnership, Wyelands Capital has also acquired an equity stake in Demica.
The partnership will combine Wyelands’ and GFG Alliance’s extensive trading network relationships and expertise in commodities markets with Demica’s wide range of working capital solutions delivered across its proprietary technology platform. Its objective is to address a significant gap in the market for inventory-led working capital solutions to industrial and trading businesses in the UK and globally. Wyelands joins JRJ Group, Toms Capital, and 76 West Holdings as investors in Demica.
To help drive its ambitious growth, Wyelands has also made several senior appointments. Among these is Simon Grenfell, formerly of Macquarie, Morgan Stanley, Goldman Sachs and most recently as global head of commodities at Natixis. He has joined Wyelands as head of financial restructuring and a non-executive director of Wyelands Bank. In addition, Simon Nasta, formerly of Allen & Overy LLP and the Bank of London and The Middle East plc joins as Group General Counsel. His most recent role was as General Counsel of First Bank of Nigeria.
GFG’s Executive Chairman Sanjeev Gupta said: “Wyelands Capital is a fundamental part of the GFG Alliance, providing financial services to the group and third parties. I am delighted by the growth of Wyelands both with Wyelands Bank as one of the fastest growing banks in the UK and Wyelands Capital as our core financial services provider.”
He added: “The new online platform will play a key role in providing insurance across the whole alliance and continue to build its third-party work. Wyelands, Trans-World and Demica are ideal partners, given the extensive commodity and banking experience within the GFG Alliance. Our aim is to provide industry-friendly financial solutions that will plug gaps in the marketplace to enable companies to grow. There is still a significant need in the commodity and industrial sectors for competitive financing and insurance. Demica’s market-leading platform and capabilities provide an exceptionally good “bridge” between borrowers and lenders in this space.”
Matt Wreford, Chief Executive of Demica added: “With over US$9bn of receivables and supply chain finance outstanding on our platform today, extending our offering into inventory finance is a logical next step to provide a full range of working capital solutions. Our partnership with the GFG Alliance will provide us with access to the deep domain expertise and relationships in the commodity sector necessary for success. We are excited about the opportunity to work with another entrepreneurial and highly-motivated firm and look forward to helping commodity firms to access committed, low-cost capital via our unique technology platform.”
Jeremy Hughes, Chief Executive of Trans-World Credit Corporation added: “This is an ideal partnership for us and we’re looking forward eagerly to working within the GFG Alliance to further develop our offer and ensure the most effective placement of global insurances both for the benefit of fellow companies within the Alliance and the wider international market. As a company we have made great strides over recent years and this gives us the opportunity to make a major step-change by combining our global insurance experience with the worldwide trading expertise of Wyelands and the GFG Alliance.”
Jay Hambro, Chief Executive of Wyelands Capital said: “These are very exciting times for Wyelands and we are very quickly expanding the range and scale of our services to clients of all sizes. We now have a London-based team of nearly 50 professionals with global experience and we’re particularly pleased to welcome people of the high-calibre of Simon Grenfell, Jeremy Hughes and Simon Nasta to that team.”