26.09.2023

Close Brothers boosts material handling team

Finance company Close Brothers Leasing is expanding its Materials Handling operations as part of a strategy to increase its presence in this part of the market.

As a key part of this move, it has been recruiting key managers in the sector, including the appointment of Andrew Woodward – the current joint president of the UK Materials Handling Association, as a managing director material handling. He has been with the company since last April when he joined from a similar role at Investec Asset Finance. He has spent his entire career in finance having started out in 1998 with Capital Asset Finance where he worked in the marketing department.
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Andrew Woodward

The company has also appointed Keith Glasscoe as a managing director, he joined the company last January, having also worked with Investec. He is another career finance man, having started out with Barclays UK in 1989. The two will be looking to service equipment dealerships in the sector, and will be aided by a new Close Brothers Leasing app.
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Keith Glasscoe

Other members of the new Material Handling team include: sales director, Louise Hanlon who joined Close last August after more than 11 years with DLL, she is also a career financier, having started out in 2000 with Barclays, and regional sales manager Joe Silva who joined the business last July from BNP Paribas Leasing Solutions, where he was internal sales manager for material handling finance.
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Louise Hanlon

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Joe Silva

The newcomers are joined by Close veteran and regional sales manager Jonathan Gee who has been with the company for around 15 years and area sales manager, Phil Blea who joined five years ago five years from fork lift dealer Linde Creighton, having begun his material handing career in 2012 with Jungheinrich.
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Jonathan Gee

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Phil Blea

The team will be supported by a dedicated Credit sanctioning team, based at Close Brothers Leasing’s Manchester office.

James Comrie, managing director wholesale finance said: “Bringing individuals of this calibre into one team and combining this with the existing Operations and Credit teams is a real statement of intent and is a continued demonstration of our long-standing commitment to supporting the materials handling community. By harnessing technology and designed with dealers in mind, the Close Brothers Leasing app will deliver a pricing tool enabling dealerships to tailor the requirements of their end user clients before then submitting proposals to Close Brothers Leasing for underwriting, documentation, and pay out. All of this will generate greater speed and precision allowing us to build stronger relationships in this sector.”
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