Clarke steps down as interim CFO of Sancus as Lawrence is appointed

Clarke was appointed to the role in March last year and was formerly a non-executive director at the specialist lender. Sancus has now appointed Keith Lawrence as CFO, and he will take up the role on 31 March, while Clarke returns to the board as a non-executive director.

The board thanked Clarke “for her hard work and commitment while serving as interim chief financial officer”.

Lawrence is also expected to join the board in due course. 

Lawrence was hired as finance director at Sancus in February and has been working with Clarke since for the handover of her responsibilities. Clarke has also helped to prepare the lender’s results for 2023, which will be published in due course. 

Lawrence has more than 20 years of experience in investment banking, including a year at Lehman Brothers as an executive director, and three years as a director of Gleacher Shacklock.

He also worked at Credit Suisse for seven years as a director, and eight years at KPMG as a manager. 

Before joining Sancus, Lawrence was a CFO of Greencore Homes, a private equity-backed housebuilder. He worked there for nearly two years.

In its half-year results for 2023, Sancus Lending wrote £83m in new loan facilities, down from £86m in 2022. It put this fall down to uncertainty in the market. 

At the end of last year, Sancus Lending announced it had joined forces with Hawk Lending to create a new specialist lender, Hawk. 

The new lender will provide development and bridge finance and is expected to have access to a wider range of potential co-funders and wholesale finance options. It will be funded by a £30m facility from the Morton family, existing co-funders, existing and new loan notes and other institutional sources of funding. This will include Sancus Group’s existing £125m facility with Pollen Street Capital.