Sonpal hiten

Lombard, the UK’s largest provider of asset finance, has established a specialist team to provide nationwide support across key industry sectors, particularly those that have more complex funding requirements, such as the green energy and agriculture sectors.

Hiten Sonpal, head of specialist sectors (pictured above) explained: “Lombard is committed to educating and supporting UK businesses to help them meet their goals. The new team, which will work in conjunction with our existing customer relationship managers, has specialist knowledge and skills that allow us to offer an enhanced level of support that will add value to our service and assist our customers’ growth strategies.

“The team brings considerable experience to complex funding facilities, allowing us to push boundaries to provide this additional support to our customers. The team members have been selected for their diverse and complimentary knowledge to work in the specialist sectors to provide an innovative and tailored approach.”

The new team comprises of Hiten Sonpal as head of specialist sector to whom three specialist sector directors report with their portfolios spanning the UK. The three directors, Ian Allder, John Kelly and Charlotte Davies, will initially focus on the green energy, renewables and agriculture sectors but in time they will also cover manufacturing and commercial transportation.

Ian Allder previously worked in Lombard’s transaction structuring and documentation team. He is able to provide specific experience gained through working in this area as well as using his legal background and qualifications to offer support in managing the documentation of more complex transactions, for example the refinancing of green energy and renewable assets to release capital.

John Kelly is a chartered accountant by profession, joining the Royal Bank of Scotland on an initial secondment from KPMG a number of years ago. Following a very successful placement, he moved across to Lombard permanently where he led a team that worked closely with the customer relationship management team to develop structured transactions. John’s experience of undertaking financial due diligence and the structuring of complex funding packages means he is well placed to support Lombard customers’ needs in the future.

The third member of the team is Charlotte Davies who moved from the Royal Bank of Scotland’s renewable energy business where she worked very closely with the agricultural sector. Charlotte’s expertise across these two key areas means that she can deliver solutions from the stand point of understanding the needs of businesses that operate within them. Her deep knowledge of the benefits of sustainable energy to UK businesses will deliver insight that will help customers make informed choices.

Hiten Sonpal stressed: “The expertise within this team is a clear statement that Lombard is committed to supporting a network to inform UK businesses of the benefits of asset finance. Our aim is to assist customers to make the decisions that are right for their businesses on how they fund their future aspirations – be that through refinancing or supporting growth strategies from beginning to end.

”The service we offer, and our approach to how we offer it, has been well received by our customers in both the renewable and agriculture sectors to date and we’ll be looking to roll out to our other key sectors during the course of 2017.”