Friday January 19th, 2024 -
Dan is one of the co-founders of ASK Partners and has been originating and structuring real estate debt and equity transactions for the last 20 years.
He has held senior roles at both Investec, where he worked for over 12 years and Capital A Finance plc, a boutique real estate lending business. Dan intricately understands real estate which means he can structure complex deals with unique funding packages which traditional lenders struggle to fund.Since its inception in 2016, ASK Partners has funded an impressive range of high-value projects across residential, commercial and mixed-use units. ASK Partners has also enabled over £1.4bn of lending through its ‘wealthtech’ platform, where institutional partners, family offices and high net-worth individuals can buy into real estate loans.
Dan recently sat down with us to reflect on how he got his start in property, operating throughout COVID-19 and what’s next for ASK Partners.
Where did you initially cut your teeth in property finance and what made you move on from your first venture?
I spent 13 years at Investec Bank where I headed up the origination division of the structured property finance team. Following the global financial crisis, there was a significant dislocation in the UK real estate debt market. I saw an opportunity here to launch an alternative lending platform capable of generating outlier risk-adjusted returns to help fill the void left by the withdrawal of many heavily regulated banks. In 2012, I established Capital A Finance in partnership with a very wealthy family office which had a significant source of capital for investment in UK real estate. Between 2012 and 2014, we financed £250m across 25 loans – all of which were fully redeemed, resulting in excellent returns. We had created a very successful real estate lending business, but we only had one source of capital, which was a very limiting factor. This provided the key to founding ASK Partners.
What made you and your co-founders the right team to start a business together?
In 2016, I teamed up with Paul Stevens, another former colleague from Investec who had established the bank’s European property finance business and had grown the division’s assets to over £3.5bn, and Doug King, a chartered accountant with banking, corporate finance and business restructuring experience who worked with me at Capital A Finance. We each gave an initial to the name, ‘A-S-K’, and ASK Partners was incorporated in October 2016. We all had strongly aligned views on what we wanted to achieve and a complementary skillset that spanned decades of experience between us. Doug and I were to run day-to-day operations with Paul in a more advisory, non-executive role. Crucially, we had all worked together successfully before, which was an important factor. We are rigorous in our approach to lending and committed to building the ASK brand into the UK’s leading alternative lending and high-net-worth wealth-tech platform. To help support this, we invested in a first-class team across multiple disciplines.
Could you tell us about building a business that has earned a reputation for fast transactions?
Speed of execution was always key for us as turning loans around quickly puts us ahead in the market. Borrowers in competitive situations bidding for sites often need fast appraisals and the assurance that they can complete in a certain timeframe. We want to be that trusted partner who can be relied upon to deliver. Having an in-house legal team and a panel of law firms is key to the fast turnarounds we can offer.
How have you built up such a breadth of knowledge so that you can fund all sectors?
I’m a big believer in the real estate fundamentals which come into play across all sectors. We have never wanted to specialise as it is very limiting in terms of looking for the best opportunities. This has always been our focus – to achieve the best risk-adjusted returns for our investors. After many years in real estate and over 100 transactions at ASK, we have certainly developed that breadth of knowledge.
How do you personally manage operating in a sector like commercial real estate that Covid-19 has heavily impacted?
Covid was a scary time for everyone, both personally and in business. It was more the fear of the unknown, really, but, whilst the impact on commercial real estate was hugely significant, it was important to remember that demand for the built environment will always remain. We just had to rethink how people want to use spaces in the post-Covid world, and that has brought with it many opportunities for repurposing, such as retail into residential and adapting office spaces to accommodate new flexible working styles.
You’re a main sponsor of Bloomsbury Football – what made you decide to support the charities your business has chosen to fund?
We’ve supported Bloomsbury Football since 2018. It was always important to us at ASK to develop a culture of giving something back. Working with Bloomsbury is great for involving staff in matches and tournaments as it is local and has a local community impact. It has been amazing to watch their success. They now support 5,000 young people aged 3-18 a week in their football camps. Of those 5,000, 60% are from a minority ethnic background, and 35% have a household income of less than £7,400 pa. Their target is to get to 20,000 children a week in areas of high deprivation by 2028. I don’t doubt they will achieve that, and we will keep funding the work they are doing. It is astounding to see the impact that being part of this football club can have on the well-being and life chances of these kids.
How do you set goals for your business when you’ve enjoyed multiple quarters of growth?
I think our key focus is to make sure we keep delivering to both our borrowers and our private clients. If we’re doing a good job then we will maintain our reputation and continue to get the referrals and repeat business that are so important to sustain long-term growth.
What next for ASK?
Having secured the backing of OakNorth Bank with the sale of 50% of our shares in October 2022, we are looking to strengthen that partnership, enabling us to offer a greater range of finance options and investment opportunities to our private clients. As ever, we will remain flexible to the economic situation and our clients’ requirements. At the moment, we are looking at providing more lower risk and return opportunities to meet current investor sentiment. We are continuing to invest heavily in our technology platform to provide a best-in-class offering. Wealth-tech as it is often now called, is an emerging sector and with seven successful years in business we are in a very strong position to be leading the way.
What is something you have yet to achieve in your career that you would still love to do?
I’m pretty one-track focused on the success of ASK so to achieve market leading status for a business I co-founded is still my top career ambition.
So how do interested investors sign up with ASK?
We’re always looking for like-minded investors who would like access to self-select secured lending opportunities. A number of our private clients used to lend directly on projects but now opt to utilise our platform due to the ease and the level of service we and our bespoke investor portal provides. We offer a streamlined electronic onboarding process combined with a personal service – Belinda, who heads up our investor relations, is always available to chat to interested investors and to explain the process. In the first instance an email should be sent to [email protected] and you will receive a call back.