People: Sport for Moulton

Jon Moulton, the investment star whose rejected strategy for Rover was vindicated by the car-maker’s later collapse, is relishing his newest non-executive post as chairman of smaller company broker and adviser FinnCap.

‘It’s quite a fun thing to do,’ says the founder of private equity success Alchemy, which he left last autumn after disagreements with partners.

Sam Smith, founder and chief executive of FinnCap, part-owned by fellow broker JM Finn & Co, hopes that Moulton is not disappointed. She says she rang him up out of the blue after he had quit Alchemy, hoping he would be sufficiently impressed by the broking group’s rapid rise in two years to a top ten AIM adviser and broker, with more than 60 corporate clients and £90 million raised for them since May.

‘We are trying to get FinnCap’s name out there with non-executive directors,’ she explains, seeing a particular role for Moulton in ‘speaking for us and networking’. Moulton, who has had boardroom experience at sometimes troubled broker Seymour Pierce, says fast-growing FinnCap is ‘well run and sensibly structured’ and sees one of his roles as being to ‘make sure they are all poked hard to make money for their clients’.

Moulton, who recently raised £142 million for his new AIM-quoted turnaround vehicle Better Capital and oversaw its first £20 million deal, says FinnCap is the smallest firm to approach him and argues it has lots of opportunities. ‘It is not a complicated business,’ he contends, ‘and some of the competition is none too competent.’