STAR Asset Finance Group shining bright amongst AFC Summer Awards nominees

With nominations closing soon for the Asset Finance Connect Summer Awards, one company shining brightly amongst this year’s nominees is AFC’s newest corporate member, STAR Asset Finance Group.

Integrating a group of independent asset finance businesses – Kennet Equipment Leasing, Ignition Credit, Credo Capital Finance, First Capital Finance – under the STAR Asset Finance Group umbrella, STAR is currently raising awareness of their new brand whilst continuing to align its processes across all divisions.

The company’s brand – ‘The national business with a local touch’ – highlights the importance of personal service to local businesses whilst increasing the scale of the business.

In 2022, the STAR Asset Finance Group financed more than £250 million for UK SMEs, and this year the combined lending across the group since its inception will exceed £1.8 billion.

This growing asset finance provider is hoping to recruit 50 people of exceptional talent looking to work for a company with a strong purpose and culture.

During a period of rapid innovative change, STAR Asset Finance’s CEO, Jim Higginbotham – a worthy nominee of this year’s CEO of the Year Award – has brought change to STAR both culturally and as a business. By introducing an effective people agenda, Jim has brought a balance to the Group with employees feeling that they have a purpose and important role to play at STAR.

By creating a compelling purpose-led company in a sales-led business, with a good company culture, Jim has introduced a positive change and balance at STAR Asset Finance, which can be difficult during times of rapid change and growth.

With a strong nomination for the Asset Finance Provider of the Year Award, STAR Asset Finance Group has experienced an aggressive growth plan focused on people and technology.

The cultural changes at STAR Asset Finance Group, driven by the CEO, have helped the company to retain current employees whilst recruiting new asset finance professionals over the past six months.

Technological change has also been essential at STAR with new systems needed to ease the process and speed up the customer journey, while reducing the cost to serve. As an expanding Group, STAR has the scale and financial capacity to invest in tech platforms that are industry leading.

As a large brokerage focused on creating and building personal relationships with potential borrowers, technology is needed to enhance, not replace, personal relationships. Having national scale can cause problems as businesses expand and lose personal local service. STAR, however, has managed to keep the rhythm of a smaller brokerage whilst creating volume and growing into a bigger business entity, and retaining the ‘local touch’ needed for customer loyalty and satisfaction.

Growing into a larger business group has allowed STAR to expand its offering with STAR Professions. This specialist niche and growth opportunity sees STAR becoming a strong alternative funding supplier in the professions space, further enhanced with their newly announced partnership with the Law Society, backed up with a £30m ringfenced lending pot on their books to help lending to legal services. (see https://www.assetfinanceinternational.com/index.php/equipment-finance/news-emea/emea-articles/22073-star-asset-finance-group-announces-partnership-with-the-law-society)

As a national asset finance group, STAR has access to one of the largest funding panels in the industry, meaning more funding options and more value, as well as their own-book funding facility of over £150m.

STAR Asset Finance Group CEO, Jim Higginbotham commented, “I’m really excited about driving the STAR Asset Finance Group forward into its next chapter of growth. We have a great team, fantastic customers and a world of opportunity.”

To see a full list of the AFC award categories and start your entry, visit: https://afcawardsuk.com/summerawards2023/en/page/categories. Closing date for entries is 21st April.