Summit Asset Management merges with SQN Capital Management

Summit’s investment portfolio will now be operated under the SQN brand with the same team continuing to manage the company’s UK listed fund – SQN Asset Finance Income Fund Limited – to which Summit had previously been the sub-Investment Manager.

Neil Roberts, Summit’s managing director and a co-founder of SQN Capital Management, LLC, has been appointed managing director of SQN Capital Management and chairman of SQN Capital Management, LLC in the US.

After successfully launching the UK’s first listed diversified equipment lease and asset finance investment fund on the main market of the London Stock Exchange seven months ago, with a £150m fundraising, this merger is Roberts’ latest move to expand the capital base and the range of financing products offered to customers.

Through the US Fund Manager, Roberts will now have access to US retail public and private funds, insurance accounts, and institutional managed accounts as well as a full service broker/dealer.

Neil Roberts commented: “I am delighted to have concluded the merger of Summit Asset Management with SQN Capital Management which will enable the combined company to grow the asset base further, lower the cost of capital and offer full-service solutions to companies requiring financing for business-essential assets across a broad range of industries, typically from £1m to £20 + million in size and on terms up to fifteen years.”

Roberts has been a pioneer of the asset finance industry with a career spanning over 40 years, which saw him establish Summit Asset Management in 1992 as an equipment lease and asset finance specialist. In 1996, Roberts acquired 50% and became chairman of US equipment leasing fund manager ICON Capital Corp which allowed Summit to finance a broader range of equipment and specialities including medical equipment, modular accommodations and energy.

He enhanced his specialism in medical equipment by forming Medical Equipment Solutions Limited (MESL) as a subsidiary of Summit Asset Management to provide financial structuring for high capital value projects.

MESL lead by Lynne Brooks, its CEO, acts as an investor in and operator of Gamma Knife radio surgery centres, a unique treatment for a range of tumours without the requirement for invasive brain surgery. MESL owns and operates two of the UK’s seven Gamma Knife Centres, one through a joint venture.

In 2007 Roberts co-founded SQN Capital Management, LLC following the successful sale of Summit’s interest in ICON Capital Corp, and formed Southeast Power Engineering Limited (SEPEL), a UK-based hydroelectric development company which specialises in building, owning and operating low head hydro-power projects.

SEPEL, backed by SQN funds, owns and operates the Romney Weir hydro plant which provides power for specialised in the field of anaerobic digestion anaerobic digestion facility serving West London and Heathrow, UK.