The people behind the lending decisions

Tony qualified in law before moving into property and finance, and has spent his career building and running businesses that originate, underwrite and manage property-backed transactions. From 1995 until 2020 he was Vice Chairman and Chief Executive of The Ritson Group, a parent company whose subsidiaries operated across regulated finance broking, real estate financing, property investment, development and management, sales and lettings, and short-term bridging finance. Several of those businesses were built from inception and subsequently sold.

That breadth matters in practice. Having sat on the broking side, the lending side and the ownership side of property transactions, he assesses a proposal the way the counterparty will — where the value genuinely sits, what the exit depends on, and which parts of a deal tend to move once it is underway. He has underwritten through more than one property cycle, including transactions that did not go to plan, which is the experience that shapes how a lending book is actually protected.

Tony is Chairman of Capital Commodities Group. At 321 Capital he leads origination and credit judgement, and takes lending decisions directly rather than through a committee process.

James is a Fellow of the Association of Chartered Certified Accountants with seven years' post-qualification experience across professional practice, fund administration and specialist private credit. His work centres on financial control, valuation, reporting and transaction analysis for private capital funds — the operational machinery that sits alongside an investment book, both of which are important.

He has held a regulated senior function within an authorised firm, with responsibility spanning investor reporting, regulatory returns and the review, preparation and presentation of valuations to committee, including full challenge and sign-off.

At 321 Capital he is responsible for underwriting discipline, financial control, reporting and transaction execution. The intention is that a borrower dealing with 321 Capital gets the speed of a private lender with the governance of an institutional one.