Who are City and Merchant?

City & Merchant were established in 1991 and are fully regulated and authorised by the FSA.

City & Merchant was originally created to provide a balanced group of traditional merchant banking activities aimed at the SME and SQC market place. Brining together corporate finance, IPO support and direct equity investing we have recruited senior executives from major institutions in order to achieve a unique vehicle for both companies and investors alike. 

In addition to our traditionally accepted role in Corporate Finance, City & Merchant have recently undertaken to offer a comprehensive range of global investment products to professional investors, to include Foreign Exchange, CFDs and Equities, as well as the more traditional derivatives, such as Futures & Options in Commodities, Currencies, Energy, Metals, Bonds and Interest Rates. We will act primarily as an Introducing Broker to several high profile London Houses, and will also be able to act as Principal in physical trading activities where required.

Our senior management come from various fields within the Financial Services sector, their backgrounds covering the entire range from corporate law & finance through to accountancy, investment banking, trading, IPO & pre-IPO funding. City & Merchant has an investment committee consisting of several members of the Senior Management Team. This team meets whenever a new Company is seeking financing. The team considers a huge variety of issues and looks for certain assets within a prospective company including the strongest growth potential, the most experienced and proven management teams, the best market opportunity, the least competition and a healthy balance sheet and then conducts exhaustive research and due diligence. Only when every member of the team is happy to proceed do we act for a new company. It is these companies that are then offered to our private investors.

It is also very important to understand that City & Merchant will only act for companies once they have reached the "D Round" of financing or later. That is to say that the funding they are looking to achieve is intended to take them to a cash flow positive / profitability situation and should be the last round of financing they need until they are looking at further expansion or acquisition etc. Whilst these are still growth companies and, as such, high risk, following this remit allows investors to get involved with companies that have achieved a certain level of proven value / success / revenue etc. and takes a large degree of uncertainty out of early stage investing.

We were proved right to exit this market in 2008. Many other companies continued to value and invest in private companies and in most cases the results were very poor. There were also a large number of planned fundings that failed, leaving the underlying company in a precarious position. We believe that we will be proved right to now take advantage of all these underlying factors and actively build a small company / new issue portfolio.

City & Merchant, by taking an equity stake in our client companies, align our interests with those of investors over the medium term. Simply put, we win if you win.

Biographies

Timothy Lyle, Group CEO
Tim is a chartered accountant and has some 35 years in investment banking covering areas such as financial engineering, venture capital, corporate advice, private and public capital raising and M&A. This was done initially at County Natwest and latterly as head of a small City bank. Tim is a founding partner of City & Merchant and holds a number of executive and non-executive directorships across a range of industries and business sizes.

Peter Brooks, Managing Director Trading
Peter started his City career at the Bank of England in 1979 before joining Sumitomo Trust in 1983 as Head of Operations. He went on to build their Treasury trading operation with responsibility for all Treasury, Fixed Income, Stock loan and Repo sales and as head trader he worked in both London and Tokyo. In 2002 Peter joined Societe Generale to build a repo fixed income desk and in the same year was promoted to Head of the Derivative Products Group. In 2006 he set up his own Securities Trading vehicle,  moving to City & Merchant in 2008.

David Papworth, Director of Corporate Finance and Company Secretary
David qualified as a solicitor in 1988 and worked in a medium sized firm that specialised in owner managed businesses. In 1996 he was made a partner and advised on a broad range of company law issues including acquisitions and disposals, MBO’s and start ups. In 1998 he completed an MBA at City University and established his own consulting business advising on contractual, compliance and corporate governance issues. He joined City & Merchant in 2005.

Les Sibthorpe, Head of Derivatives Trading
Les has extensive Financial Services experience, having begun his career as a Call Chairman with the London Commodity Exchange in 1974 before joining Drexel Burnham Lambert in 1976 where he supervised firstly the UK and then the U.S. Trading desks until 1990, when he was head hunted by Rodman & Renshaw to source and develop new client business. He moved to AMT Futures in 1992 where over the next 14 years he built up a very successful client base, before leaving in 2006 to partner with two of his former clients in the setting up of a new venture, Dragon Commodities Limited. Having taken a career break late 2007, Les has since joined City & Merchant to help develop their Trading arm.

Neil Butland, Marketing Manager
Neil started working in the financial industry nearly 20 years ago firstly as a Financial Advisor covering products from pensions to investments and insurances before moving into the trading market in the late 90’s. He has twice worked overseas, once for an American commodity firm and then for a company specialising in American growth company investments. In 2001 he returned to the UK to set up and run the dealing floor of one of the first specialist pre-IPO brokers in the UK. Neil has a very detailed knowledge of the business and it’s somewhat niche business model. He has personally raised over £20 million for small firms since 2001.