Tenn Capital is on track to hit a landmark milestone this year.
Having already signed off on loans worth £450 million globally, the Channel Islands headquartered firm is now looking beyond the half a billion pound mark.
Tenn is a specialist lender providing high-value, short-term lending to high-net-worth individuals, companies, trusts, and funds.
Launched by a small team led by Matt Watson during Guernsey’s second Covid lockdown, Tenn is only four years old but is already way out of the ‘start-up’ blocks.
“We’re very much in the ‘scale up phase’ now,” Matt says.
“We have offices in Guernsey, Jersey and even Gibraltar, but the Channel Islands business is at heart. Tenn has got into its stride reasonably quickly, but it’s been built well and we’re now in our next phase of growth with a clear idea about where we want to get to in the next 18 months.”
Having launched Tenn himself, Matt recalls he set out to meet 500 people within his first 100 days in business. Those meetings were the foundations for building his black book of contacts, relationships and the team that he’s appointed at Tenn.
“The concept was and has always deliberately been focused. The modern, wealthy, private client at the centre of the world. They might have a villa in Spain but live in Monaco, their children go to school in America. The banking system doesn’t always work for those types of clients, so we created a solution for that space.
Guernsey, the Trust companies and the ecosystem around them are so well set up for the service model we have, so I felt we were uniquely well positioned to be able to deliver a really valuable product suite to that group of clients.
Jordan Cameron
“While the concept was simple, the thesis was not straightforward, but it was a natural next step for us to make given our experience in the alternative credit sector. The hard bit was of course getting off the ground and finding capital partners to work with us. That took a bit of time.”
As Matt explains the journey he’s been on with Tenn, it’s clear that the success story results straight away. But he’s under no illusions that it was easy in hindsight. He clearly enjoyed what existed in acknowledging the put hard work in from day one.
“Having an idea is easy; the execution is the hard bit. Getting Tenn to where it is today has not been without its challenges. But if you believe in what you’re doing, and we did and do, and you have the right plan, the vision and the potential of the business that you could build, then it is exciting rather than scary.”
“Once you’ve taken those first few steps, you’re always looking ahead for whatever comes next. Always plan outside of what you’ve already achieved, because that will keep you focused. Of course, as we continue, coupled with funding demand the size of the opportunity built was really exciting. It’s what motivates us or drives us to do where we are today.”
One of Tenn’s first external hires was signing a key funder and capital partner. Matt says he knew what it meant from Tenn’s one early path as having achieved that at the start of the business to find the right capital partner and we found what we were looking for and they backed us very early on in our evolution. That’s quite rare in our space, both to find the partner that we did, and for them to back us so deeply. We’ve also had an excellent relationship with them and that put us at a very high level straight out of the gate.”
“Subsequent to that, we’ve added two new funding facilities with UK regulated banks and also work with a number of other partners. This means we have a very impressive, robust, and deep capital structure under the business.”
Today, Tenn employs 13 people across Guernsey, Jersey, and Gibraltar.
As the firm has grown steadily since its launch just four years ago, Matt has maintained direct responsibility for recruitment. He sees it as one of his most important duties, because for him, the right cultural fit is as fundamental part of building the business.
“The first thing I always do when I’m speaking to someone is try to talk them out of joining us! I regularly say, ‘this is really hard; this is all in, it’s hard work, but the rewards are great.’
“The sense of ownership, the responsibility, that we give and the trade-offs are good as well. There’s this shared culture. The more people who share in the business, so every single person that joins has that, and no one is hierarchical, it’s an owner, and that’s not for everyone.
“I think you have to narrow in on this type of thinking early on, and narrow what kind of team together it’s the right fit. So that’s the most important thing for me, because if we find good people who are aligned culturally and believe in what we’re trying to do, then we will hire the next level of the business that they will build, then it’s self-perpetuating rather than hierarchical.”
Jordan Cameron joined Tenn earlier this year as Head of Structured Credit.
Four years ago, he was one of the 500 people Matt set out to meet in that time during Tenn’s first 100 days.
Matt was telling him about the idea and vision for Tenn, the market Tenn was going after, the experience we’re attracting, and sounded very logical, clear and strong foundations there.
“Since then, I’ve kept in touch with Matt, and I’ve seen the evolution of the team, and I got to a point where I thought this would be part of a business that I could help to build.”
He agrees with Matt that Tenn is past its ‘start-up’ stage and is deep into its ‘scale up’ phase. He said it’s an exciting time for everyone involved.
“Given my background in investment banking, I’ve always enjoyed being on the other side, from the outside in before I joined. And the opportunity and the size of the market have been confirmed, and demonstrated for me. The team is amazing; you’ve built a firm that and the team have essentially figured out where the business is clearly to take it forward.
What a lot of businesses talk about doing as an ‘ambition’, they’ve actually achieved here, and that’s why I’m really enjoying being on the inside of it now.”
“We absolutely acknowledge that the hard yards that went into building Tenn before today pays dividends. As I mentioned before, looking from the outside in, it was impressive. But the thing that excited me most was the opportunity to take Tenn that next step.”
Matt agrees, adding:
“Tenn’s a very ambitious business and technology is a big part of what we continue to develop further.
“We have an adaptive view of technology to help plan to adapt at Tenn.
We’re already beyond the technology and now moving into a business scaling phase.
“We have a very clear focus on what the business’s shape looks like at the moment, and this is what Jordan’s talking about in terms of future proofing as much of the business as we possibly could every year on.
This is because we know what’s going on next year and what we’re aiming for next year, and it’s about building that plan with as much of a model ahead of that’s why it’s crucial to be able to build appropriately. We could tweak and evolve as the market changes but we’re super focused. So, putting that all together from day one architecturally, we build around it.”
His ultimate priority? It’s as simple as it was day one at Tenn.
“We’ve all said staying laser focused on our core, but we know we will divide improving our execution and efficiency. How we work and how we deliver to the team and help take us into the next chapter of our story.”