Investing in litigation finance and why it is a multi-billion-dollar industry! #FenchurchLegal

Estimated read time: 1:20

Summary

In this episode, Adam Fayed features Louisa Clouder, founder of Fenchurch Legal, who shares her journey from Greece to the UK, eventually venturing into litigation finance—a growing multi-billion-dollar industry. Louisa explains how the COVID-19 lockdown unexpectedly benefited the launch of her business and how litigation finance opens access to justice for those unable to afford legal action. She discusses the various case types funded by Fenchurch Legal and how they mitigate risks for investors, aiming to double their loan book in the near future while expanding their tech capabilities. Louisa concludes by highlighting the opportunities and ethical considerations in this booming industry.

Highlights

Louisa Clouder, founder of Fenchurch Legal, transitioned from a corporate finance background to litigation finance by identifying a lucrative market gap. 🚀
Fenchurch Legal was started during the COVID-19 lockdown which provided unique opportunities for engagement and business development. 🦠
The firm's lending is focused on small ticket, high-volume claims, like personal injury and financial mis-selling. ⚠️
Despite setting up in a global pandemic, the company has done over 42 million in business and looks to expand further. 💰
Litigation finance offers ethical funding solutions, providing access to justice for those unable to finance their lawsuits otherwise. ⚖️
There's a strong focus on risk assessment and management, with detailed underwriting processes and diverse security measures in place. 🛡️
With plans to double its book size and enhance tech infrastructure, Fenchurch Legal is set on an upward trajectory. 📈

Key Takeaways

Litigation finance is a booming multi-billion-dollar industry, particularly in countries like the UK where common law prevails. 📈
Louisa Clouder founded Fenchurch Legal, inspired by a gap in the market she identified during her finance career. 💡
Setting up the business during COVID-19 had unexpected benefits, as people had time to engage from home. 🏠
Litigation finance opens up access to justice for individuals who couldn't otherwise afford to pursue legal action. ⚖️
The business specializes in small, high-volume claims and aims to double its loan book by 2025. 📚
Fenchurch Legal mitigates investment risks by thorough underwriting, ongoing audits, and securing loans across multiple channels. 🔍
As more people recognize the value of alternative investments, Fenchurch Legal attracts high-net-worth investors, especially from expat communities. 🌍

Overview

Louisa Clouder founded Fenchurch Legal after spotting a gap in the litigation finance market. With roots in Greece and a robust career in corporate finance in the UK, she utilized her experience to launch the company during the COVID-19 pandemic. The lockdown surprisingly facilitated the business's inception, with people more open to remote interactions.

Fenchurch Legal focuses on financing litigation cases, especially small claims involving personal injury or financial mismanagement. By doing so, it provides individuals the means to seek justice without financial burdens. Amidst the pandemic, Louisa's company thrived, generating over 42 million in business and planning to double this figure in the coming years.

The growth of Fenchurch Legal is buoyed by careful risk management and strategic investor engagement. With a significant base of high-net-worth expat investors, the company ensures stringent underwriting and full-spectrum security measures to protect loans. As alternatives become attractive to investors, Fenchurch Legal continues to innovate with tech advancements, including a new AI audit system.

Chapters

00:00 - 01:00: Introduction to Louisa Clouder The chapter introduces Louisa Clouder, a director and founder of Fen Church Legal. The company has been successful, generating over 42 million in business, and is planning further expansion. Louisa is one of two directors, the other being Jerry, who is head of risk and has been with the company for a couple of years. Louisa is featured on the Adam Fir Show for Expath Wealth.
01:00 - 03:00: Growing Up and Early Career The speaker, Louisa, originates from Greece, not the UK, despite having an English mother. Her father is Greek, and she has spent a number of years in Dubai.
03:00 - 06:00: Career in Fixed Income and Transition to Litigation Finance The speaker was born and raised in Greece and then moved to the UK at the age of 18 for university. They studied mathematics and economics at Newcastle University, located in the north of England. Following graduation, the speaker relocated to London to commence a career in finance. Newcastle is noted as a vibrant and lively city, known for its social scene.
06:00 - 09:00: Starting Fenchurch Legal The chapter titled 'Starting Fenchurch Legal' begins with the author's experiences moving from Greece to Newcastle, which served as a cultural adjustment. The author reminisces about having a good time during their three years there. Following this, the author moved to London to work in the finance sector, starting with an internship focusing on trading securities such as FX and various indices. This internship paved the way to a role in corporate finance wealth management.
09:00 - 12:00: Impact of COVID-19 on Business The chapter discusses the impact of COVID-19 on businesses, focusing on financial management aspects like handling pension money and fixed income securities. It emphasizes the role of structured finance listed on exchanges and the responsibilities of managing financial desks, particularly in relation to lending and secured lending spaces.
12:00 - 15:00: Living in Dubai While Running a UK Business The chapter discusses the experience of someone living in Dubai while managing a business based in the UK. It covers the speaker's background in property development finance, asset-backed lending, and other forms of money lending. Their role involved conducting research, due diligence, writing reports, and raising capital from investors. The conversation transitions to the speaker's motivation for starting their own business, considering whether it was an opportunity in the litigation space or another reason.
15:00 - 18:00: Challenges and Lessons in Business In this chapter, the speaker discusses the motivation and challenges of starting a business, emphasizing the desire for personal freedom and control. They recount their experience of wanting to venture into business on their own and the process of identifying a niche in the market that wasn't overcrowded. Their interest lay in bridging finance and professional development, highlighting opportunities in these sectors. The chapter encapsulates the entrepreneurial drive and the strategic approach to finding viable business opportunities.
18:00 - 21:00: Overview of Litigation Finance Industry The chapter provides an overview of the litigation finance industry, which was not well-known to many people at the time. The market appeared to be booming, making it a lucrative and interesting field to enter. The author discusses the motivation behind setting up a business in this sector, using their background in secured lending to develop the idea.
21:00 - 25:00: Access to Justice and Market Expansion The chapter discusses a strategy for entering and expanding in the litigation finance market. The narrator began by identifying a gap in the market and used industry connections to start small, working initially with just one law firm. The business was built and expanded based on these initial foundations. The expansion strategy was initiated in the UK.
25:00 - 31:00: Fenchurch's Investment Product The chapter titled 'Fenchurch's Investment Product' involves a narrative of personal and professional development centered around a move to Dubai. The individual, originally from London, relocated to Dubai a year ago driven by personal and business opportunities. Despite setting roots in a new location, the business was originally established in London in April 2020, coinciding with the onset of the COVID-19 lockdown. The unique circumstances led to the business starting from a humble setting - the kitchen table. This chapter captures both the logistical and emotional transitions involved in such a life and career change.
31:00 - 35:00: Risk Management in Litigation Finance The chapter discusses the expansion of business relationships beyond London into the Northwest of the UK, focusing particularly within the claims industry and with insurers. Additionally, it touches on capital raising as part of this expansion. Over the past five years, the business has flourished, handling over 42 million in transactions and expressing plans for further growth.
35:00 - 39:00: Future Plans and Technology Investment The chapter explores the impact of lockdown on business setup and how it influenced future plans and technology investments. During the lockdown, the conditions were favorable for starting a business as people were at home, available to communicate, and had the time to explore new opportunities. The narrative highlights that the initial phase of setting up the business was positive, although there might have been challenges related to actual business operations.
39:00 - 39:33: Conclusion and Final Remarks The chapter discusses the effects of the COVID-19 pandemic on the legal industry, particularly how the closure of courts led to backlogs and delays in case processing. It highlights the challenges faced by law firms as they adjusted to remote work and the impact of these changes on the duration of funded cases.

Investing in litigation finance and why it is a multi-billion-dollar industry! #FenchurchLegal Transcription

00:00 - 00:30 5 years in the business is booming um done over 42 million of business uh and we're we're looking to expand that this year and so you're one of many directors right of fen Church we've got two directors myself uh and Jerry Jerry's our head of risk uh been working with us uh for a couple of years now this is the Adam fir show for expath wealth and today we're delighted to be joined by Louisa clouder who is the founder of fen Church legal thanks for
00:30 - 01:00 joining us Louisa hi Adam thanks and I'm kind of really curious so when it comes to your story obviously you know you've been in Dubai I think for a number of years now but tell me a bit about your story like growing up were you born and raised in the UK or or how did that kind of uh pan out hi Adam uh yeah thank you for for the invite uh it's it's great to be here so uh I didn't actually grow up in the UK I grew up in Greece so my my dad's Greek my mom's English
01:00 - 01:30 um born and raised in Greece and then I moved to the UK when I was 18 to to go to university went to University up in uh the north of England Newcastle studied uh maths and economics up in up in the north and then I moved down to London uh after University after I graduated to to start my career in finance oh fantastic so you went to Newcastle right a big party city right in the UK I don't know if it lived up to the expect ations but uh yeah it it
01:30 - 02:00 definitely did we had some very good times up there it a bit of a culture shock to the system going from Greece to uh to Newcastle but uh had a great three years I'm sure you did and you said you went to London after were you in the fix income area if I'm not mistaken uh yes so I started off doing an internship in just kind of trade in Securities like FX and all different indices for for a few months and then I started working with a corporate finance wealth management
02:00 - 02:30 Boutique they had a lot of um pension money that they used to handle and we used to look after and they also had a fixed income broken on so at the time they were applying to become a member of the Cypress Stock Exchange and we had various fixed income securities um structured and listed on that exchange which we looked after so uh my job um for for quite a few years was was running that desk uh a lot of our clients were in The Lending space in the secured l in space so anything from
02:30 - 03:00 property development Finance to asset back lending um to other forms of of money lending uh and my job was kind of to do their research due diligence write reports on them um and ultimately Capital raise from our investor base okay that was interesting so you were in London in fixed income so now you started your own business what was the main reason would you say would you say it was you saw an opportunity in the litigation space or did you just want
03:00 - 03:30 more like personal freedom and not want your boss to kind of you know tell you when to come to the office where to sit and all that kind of thing yeah definitely setting up your own business has its perks um so I I wanted to do something on my own I definitely wanted to take that next step um and build my own business so I kind of scoped the market at the time to try and see what was available uh where there was a gap really that I could move into that that not hundred other people were doing so they kind of bridging finance and Prof development Finance was a a market that
03:30 - 04:00 was quite highly saturated uh litigation Finance was something that not many people knew about or were invested in and it seemed like a a massively booming Market um so very kind of lucrative and interesting to to join so my idea behind setting up the business was taking my secured kind of lending background that i' I'd worked in for years with my clients and um developed that in into a
04:00 - 04:30 strategy that worked for litigation Finance so uh that was kind of the reason behind entering that market that there was a gap uh I knew kind of lots of people in the industry so uh started small uh by working with just one law firm and and one um insuring the market and then we just uh built built the company off the back of that and and started growing fantastic and did you start that in the UK or when you came overseas uh no the the UK so I I only
04:30 - 05:00 actually moved to Dubai a year ago um personal uh lifestyle Choice as well as a few business opportunities out here uh but I was in London up until up until last year so uh set up the business in April 2020 so just as Lockdown had hit so uh I've got the story of setting up the business in my kitchen in my kitchen table which uh which is quite cool to say uh but yeah set up the business then um spent four years in London uh just
05:00 - 05:30 building relationships across the UK not just just in London most of our clients tend to be up in the Northwest uh building relationships within the the claims industry and lots of the insurers uh and then obviously Capital raising on the other side of it um and and the five five years in the businesses booming um done over 42 million of business uh and we're we're looking to expand that this
05:30 - 06:00 year fantastic was lockdown actually good for that business model or was it kind of neutral would you say or did it add kind of extra challenges to setting up a business during that time in the UK so actually setting up the business and and the structure was uh was quite good because everybody was at home and was willing to talk to you and they had the time and freedom to to explore so starting the business was actually great uh so I can't complain about that in terms of how the kind of business business worked obviously the claims uh
06:00 - 06:30 still actually were still being processed uh as normal and the industry didn't stop the only I guess negative and challenge that we found and the law firms found is because courts were closed for a small period of time and then there was a massive backlog everybody was uh getting used to working from home and through the Furlow scheme or whatever it added a lot of time onto the cases that we funded uh so where a
06:30 - 07:00 case usually took 9 to 12 months to settle it probably added another 9 to 12 months on top so there was definitely um the delay effect but overall the industry still continued to work as usual uh and we still got great results of the back of it and fantastic but when you came to Dubai right you're running a business in the UK now you're living in Dubai and you know this podcast we're going to speak to several entrepreneurs and experts around the world who are used to dealing with that
07:00 - 07:30 multi-jurisdictional aspect so when you came to the buy did you find it quite difficult to like manage your UK business or manage relationships um in terms of like structuring the business like maybe setting up a Dubai entity as well as a UK entity or would you say Dubai is quite a good place where if you've got like a UK business you can just do things the same as you would back home basically but you just change your residency yeah so so I've only moved here personally uh as in like I've brought my my residency over here the
07:30 - 08:00 business is still pretty much a UK business we have an office in London our headquarters that uh the majority of the team is based out of um and all our lending is UK based so we only lend to UK regulated Law Firm so all of our our borrowers and our business is done there so all of our contracts are under UK law secur in forc in the UK it's a market we know that's what we specialize in and we focus in so we still pretty much very
08:00 - 08:30 much need a UK presence and we'll never lose that um as I mentioned the majority of team is still based in London and key members of management are there so the office still operates the same it's just that I'm obviously not there personally now I go back to the UK probably every four to six weeks um whether that's to spend time with the team internally or for external meetings kind of kind of both but um because our borrowers are split across the the UK they're not just
08:30 - 09:00 all in London I tend to only meet with them once a quarter anyway everything else can be done remotely um and and postco like teams and zoom have been our best friends haven't they so it's very easy to manage a team remotely uh and it's very easy to uh for for kind of everyone to be aligned and run the business successfully now in terms of the setup obviously being here has has tax benefits which I'm I'm sure is one
09:00 - 09:30 of the key reasons that most people uh move to Dubai so we have structured an entity out here and that there is tax planning behind it um but because our Market is the UK most of what we do go goes through the UK itself and so you're one of many directors right of f Church we've got two directors myself uh and Jerry Jerry's our head of risk uh been working with us uh for a couple of years now so yeah it's the two of us that
09:30 - 10:00 comprise the board we are looking to expand that this year okay it's interesting but Jerry's in the UK right uh because what I was also getting at is I think a lot of UK directors of UK companies to move overseas they find banking quite difficult sometimes for their entity because sometimes the banks will say well if you're all living overseas we're not going to carry on with that relationship but obviously if you've got two directors and one is still in the UK it's a bit easier in your situation right but I don't know if
10:00 - 10:30 you've met anyone in say Dubai or Singapore cuz I know you travel a lot like me who's been in that situation where they've struggled to get bank accounts but uh I guess for you guys it was just keeping the same relationships right but people reach out to me all the time say oh I left the UK and the banks don't want to deal with me anymore but in your situation I'm sure it's um much easier so tell me then um starting this business at quite a young age but get with Jerry is there anything you wish you would have known going into it uh any kind of mistakes or anything that
10:30 - 11:00 like if you were to do it again you would kind of change about setting up the business uh I wouldn't say I'd necessarily change anything uh there's definitely looking back there's definitely things we could have done better or faster or more efficiently um I think finding the right team to run your business is Paramount to the success of the business like everything is down to people whether that's risk management whether that's finances whether that's relationships so for me
11:00 - 11:30 building a strong team has been um has been what has aided the success of the business so if I could have found the right people earlier that would have definitely helped or or grown the B the the team uh and the business a bit earlier I think that would have helped the business grow a bit faster but bringing people that have expertise in certain areas and relying uh on on other people's experience um to to bring to the business I I also think is key so taking
11:30 - 12:00 Jerry for example he's got many years of uh experience in risk management and uh the litigation Finance industry as a whole so bringing that expertise to the team is uh has has been brilliant uh and and that's what we plan to continue uh to do going forward sure and it's interesting because you mentioned litigation which is your key business right is it a growing area in the UK is it like a fast growing area um like do
12:00 - 12:30 you know like the approximate like year on-year kind of growth of the litigation sector yeah the market is is massive it's booming uh on on an annual basis um it's a billion dollar industry now and the projections are are huge for the for the future um I don't know that the the stats off the top of my head to tell you but I think the UK Market Standalone was about 5 billion last year and that's uh projected to grow significantly over the
12:30 - 13:00 next five to 10 years um it's a relatively new industry it's only been around for like 15 20 years and only really across the jurisdictions where uh common law um it is at the Forefront so Australia the US the UK but uh yeah massive market and and booming and would you say it's mainly booming due to people sing each other more or is it just like a lot of the law firms AR
13:00 - 13:30 finding ways of getting the finance to begin with from like the banks yeah so um banking banking Banks don't really Finance this type of um this type of business so it's definitely considered an alternative Finance um sector if you like I think now people have trialed and tested it with with kind of litigation Finance as a product it's definitely gaining more traction and people are more like ly to
13:30 - 14:00 um to pursue a law a lawsuit where whereas they couldn't afford to beforehand so taking the market and splitting it in two which is kind of how we see it you've got the big high stake High ticket type of uh cases your big corporate suits where it would take years to actually uh settle or get anywhere but settlements are in the multi-millions that type of that that side of the market is high Stakes High returns but also high risk so you've got
14:00 - 14:30 um people like private Equity Funds or VC funds going in um where if they win they win massive so they'll they'll get a percentage of the damages and they might win they might return 5 600% of their actual Capital but if they lose they get nothing back so that there's definitely that side of the market now these big corporates that are suing each other tend to either not want to spend the capital up front uh and use money
14:30 - 15:00 elsewhere or or not afford it so litigation Finance allows them that um ability to to sue where they couldn't afford it otherwise and then you've got the side of the market that we're in which is the small ticket high volume claims where you've got day-to-day consumers uh trying to get some form of Justice where they've been wronged um by by a corporate or the government uh and they don't have two three 4,000 to put up for a claim that may or may not win
15:00 - 15:30 so that's where we come into play and are able to front that cost for them the lawyers are doing on a nowi no fee basis so they they don't have to pay for anything all they have to do is basically provide their details for the lawyers to run the claim we'll provide the capital and then on settlement uh the way that the law firm gets paid and we get paid back is from the winnings uh rather than uh the the the claim and or the consum having to pay and up front so
15:30 - 16:00 it definitely opens up justice access to justice for people that couldn't afford it otherwise that's interesting so what would be like a typical case now I know obviously there's so many different ways people might be able to sue people uh in the UK but let's talk about like a very specific case would it be for example where imagine someone in the UK feels they've been miss sold by their bank and it's a relatively small claim like2 or 3,000 and a list wouldn't usually allow
16:00 - 16:30 uh something like that or it wouldn't be feasible let's say to do that kind of case would that be the typical case or would it be something else like car financing and that kind of thing or or is it a mixture of all those things yes so we do a few different case types uh I guess the three main areas we probably focus on is personal injury so I'm sure you've uh you've went well I don't know when you actually left the UK but I'm sure you've heard the ambulance Chase to kind of ADW it's like were you involved
16:30 - 17:00 in a car accident or or something similar so we look after a lot of personal injury cases where people have had some form of accident uh and then trying to to claim some money back so again that's a process where you have to get a medical report to explain exactly what happened and then based on on on the the level of injury um you can actually claim some money back we look at Financial melling a lot which is the your typical kind of um Motor Finance
17:00 - 17:30 agreements where consumers have been msold uh and you can claim some form of money back from the big Banks um and we also look after housing disrepair claims uh it's a big one for us where you've got tenants within social housing uh been complaining to the government or or the local councils for over six months about serious issues with their properties whether that's really bad damp uh or something similar uh and it's complaining to the
17:30 - 18:00 government to actually come and fix the disrepair itself so if they haven't done that within the time frames noted within their contract it's basically a breach of contract claim uh and they can claim back two things actually making them come and fix the disrepair within the property but also get some some damages back some some money back so uh in the various forms of the consumers we help them go against the kind of big boys if you like to to get some to get some
18:00 - 18:30 compensation back it's interesting you talk about you know going after the big boys and obviously that can be a really positive thing right in terms of if you got someone who doesn't have much money and they could go up against the big boys and actually make you know money back potentially that's really good but do you think there's a wider issue now in UK Society in terms of we're becoming a little bit more like America in terms of like I can remember when I was growing up and obviously I'm not that old uh I often joke to my wife that I'm
18:30 - 19:00 still going to be young until I'm 40 uh but um I can remember even me when I was growing up um it wasn't such a big thing right so so do you think there's a risk obviously it's not our role to kind of you know uh make any Big M judgments about this but do you think it's like also a case of the UK it's becoming a bit more like the states like people are a bit more likely to kind of pursue these things obviously that's an opportunity for you know what we're doing or what you're doing should I say
19:00 - 19:30 in terms of litigation investing but do you think there's a risk things could go too far like in 20 years like you could have the youngsters of today like suing for almost everything right which seems to happen in the United States yeah definitely um there's always that risk H and and when there's the funding to do it it needs to be done morally and and ethically as well but coming back to I guess what we do cuz that's the part of the market that I could probably comment on um in a bit more depth when we're
19:30 - 20:00 supporting people that are living in really bad um housing conditions to go against the local Council that's just totally um ignored them for for a year then that's the type of place I see our funding as impactful um because they can't do that otherwise so when it comes to things like that I I don't think um what we do is uh immoral if you like I I think it's it needs to be there um but
20:00 - 20:30 there's definitely things that that we wouldn't fund so if we didn't believe that it it has a positive impact on the person we're funding we we wouldn't do it we wouldn't even consider it now in terms of um people suing everyone when it comes to I guess the private sector because what we're doing is pretty much small claims with uh cases that have a legal precedence set in the market and it's all consumers um trying to to claim
20:30 - 21:00 for3 to 5,000 we're not talking massive amounts in the private sector I guess that's when it gets a bit more moral reasons uh and I think when it comes to something like that the solicitors that are taking on the case have to assess this on a case-by Case basis and no litigation fun would fund if there's not good prospects so you'd still have to get council's advice on whether they're going to succeed um and having like 60%
21:00 - 21:30 prospects of success and so on so I think when lawyers take on the case they have to put put their moral judgment in place and say is this something that we want to support or or not support and if we do Let's help them Finance it uh but but if not why would you if you want to sue yourself and pay yourself then go ahead to do it but we're not going to help you with the finance to do it too so yeah I think it it's going to have to come down to the law firms and the finance companies is to assess
21:30 - 22:00 everything I think the legal system in the UK is a bit stronger and stricter than the us so I think it's going to be a bit harder to go overboard with everything um but yeah that's my view anyway yeah and it kind of brings me to the actual product of f Church itself right because it is open to investors of course and many wealthy people invest in this sector so tell me a bit about like the fen Church Bond or or Lono how does it work for the end investor out there
22:00 - 22:30 yes so um the first few years of the business we raised money institutionally uh primarily so big investment platforms or or funds but about 18 months ago um we structured a loan note um to open the invest investment to high net worth investors and and other forms of qualified investors so we put together a a secured loan note which has a fixed term and and fixed rate um so it's it's a two or threeyear loan uh which the
22:30 - 23:00 investor um provides to the company and in return they get a fixed return of 11 or 12% either paid on a quarterly basis or at the end of the term uh of the actual loan note so again structured that product to open that investment to to other investors too um and it's had great success we've raised a lot of money over the last 18 months and we're
23:00 - 23:30 going to continue doing so fantastic now so uh alternative Assets in general are growing now in the market so not just the high netw worth investors who are going into Fen church but it's becoming a massive thing right in terms of there are many alternative investment platforms there are many alternative investment products what do you think is leading to this kind of uh situation cuz traditionally people would just do like a 6040 portfolio stocks and bonds or
23:30 - 24:00 indeed go into real estate and people are still doing that but alternatives are really coming up now in terms of uh an alternative for people's portfolio what do you think is driving that uh in terms of like investor demand uh I think private credit as a as a as an asset uh overall has grown massively in the last few years I mean post financial crisis uh trying to get a bank loan for a business was uh was close to impossible and that's where kind of the Alternative Market started
24:00 - 24:30 to Boom a bit so I think private credit as a whole over the last few years has boomed um as a way of financing a business off your balance sheet if you've got a strong balance sheet but also I think the capital markets have not been doing great uh recently so people are looking for a more stable return a most a more fixed and stable return rather than something that um is hugely volatile or potentially not offering any return at all yeah that's
24:30 - 25:00 very interesting and of course bonds as well I mean government bonds traditionally they would go up when stocks went down but in 2022 we saw when interest rates went up government bonds actually suffered just as much as stocks and I think that also led to more people considering Alternatives so um where have you seen most of the demand then has it been from expat investors family offices or just High net worth locals or has it been a combination of all those things uh yeah combination I think um the expa
25:00 - 25:30 community is definitely probably our our primary Community I think that's down to it being a UK company and then being more comfortable with a UK structure um I think going outside of the UK that there's definitely a lot of uh a lot of people interested in this but it takes a lot more time to explain the structure the setup someone from from the UK understands security a bit more understands that a UK company is a legal entity that has certain UH
25:30 - 26:00 responsibilities back to their end investors so it it's taken a bit more time um to go out and Market our investment opportunity to uh overseas individuals but it it's definitely been uh conceived very well uh and opened opened up a lot of doors uh We've also been to a lot of family offices to to do Road Road shows and presentations and it's had a lot of interest it's 11 12% is an attractive return uh especially
26:00 - 26:30 when it's income producing paid out on a quarterly basis a lot of people like the fact that they get um a payout every quarter uh to to use some people would invest 100,000 get their interest on a quarterly basis and use that for their kind of income and spending money so yeah a combination overall okay that's very interesting and when it comes to risk obviously all Investments come with risk and nothing
26:30 - 27:00 said on here is financial advice but nevertheless how do you or the solicitors actually manage that kind of risk because of course you got to generate this 11 or 12% return how do you try to limit the risk for the investors at the end of the day yeah so two ways really risk management of our portfolio uh and security they're the two key things that uh we spend most of our time on um so in terms of risk risk management um making sure we lend to the
27:00 - 27:30 right people and making sure that they do what they're supposed to do with the money on an ongoing basis is the two things we focus on so to give you an example our underwriting and on boarding process of of new law firms takes weeks to do probably about six to eight weeks because we go uh into the detail of every point of their business operations experience track record Financial so we'll do an in-depth review of the of their business business uh and we'd only proceed to lend them money for cases if
27:30 - 28:00 we were happy with how everything uh runs within the company and they have a strong enough uh Financial setup to be able to take on the debt and ultimately repay it and then on an ongoing basis reviewing their their financials on on a monthly basis and reviewing their cases is also super important so again financial analysis on a monthly basis to make sure they're still profitable and then they can manage cash flow uh and
28:00 - 28:30 then case auditing so we we have an internal team and instruct an external partner on a monthly basis to look at all the cases that we fund uh from a kind of auditing perspective and making sure they're following all rules and regulations of of the s u making sure that they've got constant communication with the client and the case is progressing and just in general tracking the progress of a case which is ultimately our asset that we're Lending against so that's what we do from a on
28:30 - 29:00 boarding and monitoring process and then the the other kind of uh vital part of of our business is how we structure our security how we make sure that everything we lend against is is secured so our our primary security is the case itself so we're lending against a legal case and that legal case two things could happen to it it could win or it could lose when it wins the proses of that case for our security so we have uh
29:00 - 29:30 a charge and an assignment over all the proceeds that actually uh come from the case if it potentially loses we are we are insured against that risk so we we put something called after the event Insurance in place for every case it basically covers all those costs and dispersements that the law firm has incurred on the legal claim from from day one until the point of failure uh and and that way they get paid all the money which is used to repay our loan
29:30 - 30:00 it's our primary security we then go kind of a step further and take uh a debenture over the assets of the law firm in general uh so we don't just secure our cases we secure everything within the business so if there was any shortfall we use that uh that debenture to to generate money from other assets uh and we also take personal guarantees of the shareholders of the business so uh primarily to align their interests
30:00 - 30:30 with ours and make sure that they that they succeed in the business fantastic and you don't go in general direct to the consumer right you go through financial advisors and wealth managers or do you sometimes go direct to the consumer to to the investor yeah directly to the investor like if someone wants to invest do they go for an advisor or they can go direct as well yes so we have a very few uh investors that that we have direct just from kind
30:30 - 31:00 of relationships that I've had in the industry o over the years I would say 95 97% of the investors that come through to us come through our network uh through wealth managers financial advisors other kind of financial intermediaries but yeah we don't really deal directly with investors we have some direct family offices we have some big kind of investment platforms and and debt funds that we uh that invest Direct ly with us but everybody else goes
31:00 - 31:30 through some financial institution sure and what are the plans for the future would you say for you personally and also Fen church so the next couple of years for me is just uh go go go with this business so we've had five years of uh of of great growth um and and we want to continue that uh we've got a really good rhythm with um on boarding new law firms at the moment uh and capital raising so 20 25 for us is a year to to
31:30 - 32:00 double our loan book we're currently sitting around 25 million and our our aim is to to close 2025 off at 50 uh so there's a lot of work involved with that but yeah we've got we're going to grow our team so we've definitely got a couple of highes um on the road map for this year uh and we've also got a very big Tech project on so we we've built our own in loan management portal um that that we've used over the last three years to manage all the cases that we
32:00 - 32:30 actually um that we actually fund we've just extended that to build an investor portal so over the next month or so we'll be launching that side of it to manage all of our investors so investors can always see their investment uh or or their advisors uh and track everything but we are also trying to build our own um kind of AI auditing system to enhance our case audits both from a kind of volume and quality perspective so we've
32:30 - 33:00 got quite a lot on the tech front side of things as well this year so busy year fantastic well thanks for coming on Louisa much appreciated thank you very much Adam and for everyone else if you can like subscribe and give us a great review that' be greatly appreciated until next time have a great day