Investec, a South Africa-based financial services group, intends to step up its lending to UK customers, reported The Financial Times. In fact, the group seeks to capitalise on the retrenchment of rivals and aims to grow more than 10% in 2009.
Already the group has GBP6 billion of loans in the UK out of GBP17 billion globally. Stephen Koseff, chief executive of Investec, said that Investec would increase its UK private client and corporate lending operations, in part to counteract the stagnation in its domestic market.
Reportedly, Investec has been witnessing growth in the corporate advisory market in the UK, despite a 10% dip in pre tax profits for the first half of 2009 to the end of September. Further, it is able to increase its client relationships from 15 at the start of the year to 27 of the members of the FTSE250.
Mr Koseff said: “We think there are opportunities to broaden our footprint significantly in the UK,” reported newspaper.
