The 10 Year Journey of Ashbridge Partners – Mark Ashbridge

Small beginnings

It’s a Monday morning in 2012, and I scan the diary for the week. After many years in a large private finance company, I’ve taken a well-calculated but sizeable risk, and have set up a business carrying my own family name.

There’s a busy week ahead.

Networking. Writing presentations. Pitching. Hopefully winning – but perhaps losing. Due diligence. Presenting to banks. Fee negotiations. Analysis.

My wife Juliet is with me, running our marketing and finance departments single-handedly. She’s come from her own successful background and we’re following our dream together, building a family business. We feel confident in our experience and knowledge and our goal is to provide best-in-class finance advice to landed estate families. Starting a business is still a risk, and we’re putting our family name on the line.

From the beginning, Juliet and I have always shared the same values – integrity, generosity, family, loyalty, care, friendship, hospitality, truth. Now they run through everything we do as a business.

Will prospective clients trust such a small outfit when their own stakes are high? Only time will tell.

2022

10 years on, time’s story unfolds. It’s a Monday morning again, but my diary looks very different. I sit at our meeting room table in Pine House with our growing team for our weekly meeting. Two members are joining us online, one from our new London base, the other from home.

We talk about our 3-year strategic plan. One of our non-executive consultants presents a testimonial from a long-standing client, we discuss our new website, and we plan our next team walk in the Cotswolds followed by drinks in the pub. Our RAU scholarship intern will join us as a part of the Ashbridge Partners team, whose number is well into double digits.

What’s happened in those 10 years?

How on earth did we get here?
Aside from hard graft and long hours, we learned to put relationships first. We started out as transaction based, helping clients finance their projects. But very quickly, it became clear that who we are was every bit as important as what we can do. We stuck to our values through thick and thin.

During the Global Financial Crisis, banks largely closed their doors and transactional business was paralysed. However, using the network of smaller lenders we’d built up over time, we found solutions for our clients. In turn, our customers realised that as well as helping them grow in times of instability, we genuinely enjoyed seeing them thrive. Their success was ours too, but it also gave us heartfelt satisfaction and pleasure.

Clients began to recommend us to their own extended families and friends. They would come back to us for financial reviews, and they approached us for advice before and after Brexit. This was a time when foreign lenders were confronted with a new British landscape, and some had to open new UK banks in order to serve clients. Again, we acted as a stable, knowledgeable anchor for those who counted on our long-term view and integrity.

Entrepreneurs who knocked on closed doors during the Covid pandemic would find a different network of a wider range of lenders through us. As risk takers ourselves, we have become known for supporting those who many high street banks might otherwise turn away.

As a result, we now enjoy incredible client loyalty. For some, we are the only advisors they have kept after 10 years. We are with businesses and families for the long term.

Finance For Growth

We added a new strapline to our logo last year – Finance for Growth. Over these 10 years, we’ve evolved to support the growth of 5 different sectors – landed estates, residential, real estate, family businesses and entrepreneurs. Our team now includes Client Advisors, Accounts Analysts, Researchers, Strategy Advisors, Trainee Advisors, a Head of Business Development, and a Marketing Team.

As much as it was a challenge, the pandemic also opened up new opportunities and a new marketplace of employees. Attracting a London-based person to the Cotswolds early in their career would have been unthinkable before 2020, but we now have a Lending Advisor working between our London office and Stow.

Right now, we’re refurbishing our office in Stow-on-the-Wold, moulding it to the contours of our growing team, and creating meeting spaces for clients. We’d love to show you around and welcome you to come and visit us at either site.

Team expansion and recruitment

Over the last ten years we have grown the team while staying true to our ethos and our values. We’ve enjoyed learning from each other’s diverse experiences and embracing new ways of doing things together. Ashbridge Partners still feels like the family business we founded, and the next ten years look exciting and full of potential. Thank you all for being on this journey with us.

Mark Ashbridge mark@ashbridgepartners.co.uk

01451 830223
07770 659553

Follow our journey on LinkedIn:

https://www.linkedin.com/company/ashbridge-partners-ltd/people