Ex-Adam & Co chair Entwistle: why UK needs a new bank

Ex-Adam & Co chairman Ray Entwistle is considering launching his new UK private bank with backing from a foreign institution and has said that a potential strategy to acquire investment management businesses could be put on ice.

Speaking to Wealth Manager, Entwistle, chairman of Scoban, said the team had received a number of approaches from international organisations to launch a UK business with their backing. He said the team, which also comprises Adam & Co’s former finance director Andrew Mulligan, alongside Alan Young from the group’s facilities team, was looking at a number of options for the bank, which seeks to return to a traditional service-led private banking model. ‘There are organisations around the world who are saying “why don’t you do this for us?”,’ he said.

‘There are lots of opportunities. We are exploring them all, because you have to. It is in the shareholders’ interests to look at them.’

His comments come as Scoban enters the next stage of development after successfully raising another £5 million in a second fundraising. This sits alongside £1.4 million from the group’s initial capital raising.

It will now look to build its operational and regulatory structure, and consider taking up premises and making further hires.

Entwistle said the team would make a decision about the direction of the business before the end of the year.

The options include raising more money – a figure that could be around the £75 million mark – or purchasing another organisation, which would represent a quicker route, but one that is not without its challenges.

‘Although it is taking time, I don’t have any doubt that the business is out there. People want a new bank. They are looking for quality of service and a return to how banking was – a service-led business,’ Entwistle explained.

His comments are particularly timely, given Financial Services Authority managing director Martin Wheatley recently called for a return to old-fashioned banking, where consumers are viewed as someone to serve, rather than someone to sell to.

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