Blackfinch Group, the Gloucester-based investment specialist focused on tax-efficient investments, property lending, renewable energy and ventures, has hired finance lawyer Tom Marshall to strengthen its in-house legal team and enable the group to provide clients with significant cost, time and efficiency savings.

Tom Marshall joins Blackfinch from the banking and finance team at TLT (a national law firm with headquarters in Bristol), where he advised a wide range of clients on debt finance transactions. Prior to that, he trained and qualified at Osborne Clarke.

David Higson, Head of Blackfinch Property, says: “As a specialist lender, Tom’s real estate finance expertise and experience, and his experience acting for both lenders and borrowers, represents a real coup for the whole of Blackfinch Group. It’s incredibly rare to find his expertise available as an in-house service within the specialist lending sector. Our in-house legal team has already earned plaudits with commercial property developers and helped establish our reputation as a lender who goes the extra mile to facilitate complex deals through to completion. Now, with Tom on board, we will grow our capacity and loan book, enabling us to offer even faster transactions and processing - which will be music to the ears of our clients.”

Tom Marshall says: “I wanted to move in-house and I am attracted to the ethos of Blackfinch Group, plus the way that its portfolio is structured around property lending and its energy portfolio aligns perfectly with my experience. I’m also looking forward to getting involved in the ventures part of the business, where Blackfinch funds exciting and ground-breaking tech companies.

“One of the big attractions of Blackfinch Group is its agility and the speed at which we can do transactions - having the legal function in-house really helps with that because it means that we can do things that bit quicker and we're also closer to the commercial side of the transaction. And there's obviously a cost saving for our customers because the external legal fees are reduced, so there are lots of advantages.”

Blackfinch Group is committed to helping to create a more sustainable world through its focus on environment, social and governance factors.