Exclusive: P2P fund boss Simon Champ exits Pollen Street Capital

The P2P Global Investments portfolio was the first UK listed fund to invest directly into online lending platforms, having launched back in 2014.

P2P fund pioneer Simon Champ has left his role as head of the investment manager of the £735m P2P Global Investments trust, AltFi can exclusively reveal.

Champ, AltFi has learned, has left the firm recently. Commenting on the news Champ told AltFi that he had departed amicably to concentrate on his role as chairman of Pots & co, an upmarket pudding business selling to supermarkets in both the UK and globally.

"After almost five years since the founding of the business I have left by mutual agreement on 12 March and I am looking forward to spending more time with my other business interests including Pots & Co the UK artisanal luxury deserts business I helped to create in 2013,” he said. 

Champ was a founding partner of P2P Capital Solutions which later became MW Eaglewood Europe and was the driving force behind the launch of the P2P Global Investments trust (P2P GI), raising a large seed portfolio for the investment trust from respected fund managers such as Neil Woodford and Mark Barnett. Through a series of subsequent share issuances the trust raised a total of £880m under Champ’s leadership.

MW Eaglewood merged with Pollen Street Capital, manager of the Honeycomb investment trust, in September 2017.

Earlier in 2017 P2P GI had begun somewhat to move away from pure P2P and marketplace lending exposure into more specialist niches across the alternative credit spectrum.

This followed a somewhat tricky time for the fund with performance, while consistently positive in terms of its Net Asset Value (NAV), was disappointing to some larger shareholders.

Champ was formerly in equity sales roles at Dresdner Kleinwort, J.P. Morgan Cazenove and most recently a founder of Liberum Capital.