Invest & Fund hires ex-banker Adam Barrett to woo institutions

INVESTMENT banking veteran Adam Barrett has joined Invest & Fund to help boost the peer-to-peer property lender’s access to institutional investors.

Barrett joins the fintech space after more than three decades in investment banking. He was previously the head of institutional sales at Lloyds Bank and has worked at Goldman Sachs and UBS.

Barrett, who started in his new role this week, will be tasked with helping Invest & Fund expanding its institutional investor base, which a spokesman described as “a key segment for us”.

The new head of institutional lender origination is well connected to the platform already, having worked previously with Mark Kibblewhite, a non-executive director of Invest & Fund and former managing director of Barclays Wealth.

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Invest & Fund offers investors the chance to put their money into property development loans of up to £5m, with investments starting at £500. The firm, which was set up in 2012 by David Turner and Mark Hawkins, received full authorisation from the Financial Conduct Authority earlier this month and has promised investors returns of between seven and 11 per cent.

It completed a round-two fundraising this year and has joined the National Association of Commercial Finance Brokers.

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