The Intermediary – January 2026 - Flipbook - Page 46
Q&A
drops below 20%. Underpinning all of this is
the matter of the physical asset itself. Not only
are these items valuable, they often also have
sentimental, historical and cultural weight.
Suros, Palmer says, aims to return items to its
clients “in at least the same condition, if not an
enhanced condition.”
This might be as simple as ensuring the correct
storage for a painting, or might stretch to having
a watch detailed, vehicle serviced or jewellery
polished.
Palmer adds: “Because that was my original
background, I’ve always been the one that tends to
find solutions and put those in place.”
To this end, asset logistics and protective
handling are central parts of the value proposition,
including global partnerships with specialist
storage and shipping firms, to address the complex
challenges in this market that more ‘mainstream’
lenders simply do not face.
Myths and misconceptions
When Palmer first got into the world of
pawnbroking, he had many of the same
misconceptions that are still around today.
He says: “I thought, isn’t that back street,
blacked out windows, hand over your stuff and
never see it again, kind of stuff?
“That was something we really tried to destroy,
especially in the Borro days. Instead, it was all
about what could your asset do for you. We even
did TV campaigns where a guy went on holiday and
said, ‘my watch got me this holiday’.
“For the broker market, I guess they feel
that we’re expensive, compared with bridging.
Let’s say bridge lending is 1% a month – we’re
typically at 3% a month. But if someone borrows
£100,000 from us for six months, and £700,000
at 1% for a year, when you blend it all together,
the incremental cost to the borrower is not as
significant as 3% sounds.”
This is about more than just rate and cost. For
example, in the worst-case scenario, this might
mean the difference between losing a watch and
losing a family home.
Palmer says: “Sometimes it’s sentimental, and
people don’t want to let it go. But if there isn’t so
much of an attachment, it’s an asset and it served
a purpose.”
Whether due to negative misconceptions or
simply a lack of awareness of this option, the
luxury asset-backed lending market is often
hampered by brokers failing to present clients
with the products available to them. Indeed, it is
rare to find brokers discussing luxury assets with
their clients, even those that are HNW and prime
candidates.
Palmer suggests that questions around
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The Intermediary | January 2026
I N P RO F I L E
The luxury asset-backed
lending market is often
hampered by brokers failing
to present clients with the
products available to them.
Indeed, it is rare to find brokers
discussing luxury assets with
their clients, even those that are
HNW and prime candidates”
household and personal assets should be part of
the initial fact-find.
He adds: “Often when they do their fact find and
look at assets and liabilities, a lot of these things
just get forgotten about, because they don’t know
how to handle it. It’s about education, because
more property deals will get done if brokers are
aware of these extra bits that you can bolt on.”
To this end, Suros Capital is active in providing
training sessions to help explain the opportunities
that brokers might be missing to help their clients
even further, as well as establishing strong
relationships with larger intermediary firms, such
as Loans Warehouse.
Overall, Palmer says the push should be for
brokers to offer holistic solutions, rather than
defaulting to property-only thought processes
and losing out on potential deals and deeper client
relationships.
In order to reward brokers and help push
this product further into the forefront of their
awareness, Suros Capital is offering a 3% proc fee
for business introduced in Q1 2026, to start the
year off on the right foot.
For Suros, this is just the start of things to come,
with plans to modernise its systems and optimise
its websites for the new normal of AI searching,
as well as blueprints for a US expansion of the
business in early 2026 alongside continued UK
growth. Within this, the lender plans to grow the
proportion of business lending within its portfolio.
In the end, as the business grows both its
lending and its reach, Palmer simply calls for
brokers to be open to all the products available
to their clients, and to factor assets beyond just
property into their conversations, to make the
most of the year to come. ●
