History
Azzurro Associates has been buying SME lending and B2B receivables portfolios since 2017, the same year in which it was acquired by Elliott Management. Since then, Azzurro has invested more than £250m in growing its debt purchase portfolio.
Azzurro Associates has achieved a number of significant ‘firsts’:
Azzurro Associates agrees the acquisition of Equivo’s Legal Services division and Shoosmiths’ Business-to-Business Recoveries division, which will join the Solaris Law team to create a specialist law firm for consumer and business/ commercial debt recovery.
Azzurro launches the first ever forward flow of UK SME NPLs with a large non-bank SME lender.
Leigh Berkley and Claire Moore join the senior team, as an independent Non-Executive Director and Chief Risk Officer respectively, bringing expertise from across the credit industry to support the strategic management and governance across the Azzurro Group.
Investment Appetite
Azzurro operates across the credit cycle, providing creditors with solutions for performing debt pools through to aged and written-off accounts. We have experience of acquiring and managing secured asset-based lending pools, PG-backed or Debenture-backed lending products, and Unsecured debt portfolios.
Whether on a one-off (spot) or forward flow sales process, our investment appetite extends, but is not limited to, the following portfolios:
This is Azzurro’s core debt purchase activity. Unique in the UK, we have appetite across the credit cycle and asset type from merchant cash advance (MCA) and revolving credit to SME loans. Having purchased around £1bn of SME lending stock, we have deep expertise in the acquisition and compliant management of SME lending debt. We have appetite to acquire pools where debt balances range from £1k to £1m+.
As an FCA regulated debt purchase business, we seek to acquire CCA Regulated debt portfolios across business lending (eg to sole traders, partnerships) or consumer lending asset types. Whether paying or non-paying pools, we are happy to acquire regulated debt portfolios across the credit spectrum, with particular specialism in the purchase of ‘in situ’ portfolios.
Building on the decades of experience that the Azzurro team members have in managing the recovery process of B2B Receivables portfolios, we look to acquire pools of unpaid B2B receivables at any point of the credit cycle, either on a one-off (spot) or monthly forward flow basis. The average balance for such pools can range from £100 to £10,000+.
Where a corporate insolvency results in a collect-out situation, Azzurro can provide creditors with up front capital for the debtor book. Commercial offers can include profit share arrangements to top up a purchase price subject to ledger performance. We are happy to utilise an IPs servicing team if this is preferred by the parties.
Unique in the UK, Azzurro has appetite to acquire SME lending guaranteed by public bodies, across the credit cycle. Including Enterprise Finance Guarantee (EFG) loans, Export guaranteed loans and Covid-19 lending products, Azzurro can acquire legal or beneficial rights to the non-performing accounts across the credit cycle (pre- and post-guarantee payment).
Our Investment Principles
Benefits of selling debts to Azzurro
Azzurro leverages a unique data-led approach to pricing and recovery, in an industry where the availability and quality of such data can be challenging. Using our rich and deep proprietary data pool, pricing algorithms and our specialist experience of managing SME debts, we can intelligently and sensibly assess the value of SME and B2B debt portfolios based on ‘true’ risk and a propensity for the customer to pay. We use pre- and post-purchase scorecards to assess value and inform the right recovery strategy.
Our recoveries business employs a flexible, vertically integrated model, underpinned by a sophisticated, scalable, data rich analytics engine. We determine the optimal collections approach to each individual debt once it is acquired. Working with our group servicing partners, we develop customer engagement strategies to yield the best, sustainable outcomes for our customers, fully reflecting their financial capacity.
The debt purchase value paradigm comes from our longer-term time horizon and continued investment in data assets at all stages of the credit lifecycle. Indeed, we can assess value in pools of aged lending and B2B inventory, and provide creditors with tools to derive immediate and ongoing liquidity via the compliant active management of such delinquent inventory. We routinely conduct proactive valuation exercises for creditors, providing pricing for a range of account cohorts. Such a valuation process can inform a creditor’s provisioning and optimisation of their delinquent debt management strategy.
The Azzurro Group prides itself on principles of openness and transparency with its creditor partners. As a default, we provide performance and activity data each month post completion of any transaction, and welcome on-site visits from creditors to review our customer engagement strategies.
The sale and purchase agreement process informs the collection strategy, and also articulates those processes for which the creditor wishes to retain pre-approval rights post-sale. This may include legal or enforcement activity processes.
