Ex-Sagitta head fails to raise Rismark

Former Rothchild and Sagitta Wealth Management chief executive Peter Martin has abandoned plans for Rismark International, after splitting with a consortium which was to have backed the firm’s launch later this year.

Martin will now aim to return to the industry through a new venture, Greenway Capital Limited, which he is planning to launch together with two former members of the Rismark consortium in early 2005.

Martin is raising private equity funds for the new venture, which he says will be in the “same area of business” that Rismark was intended for.

Money Management reported in June that Martin, who was one of a number of Sagitta executives to depart following its incorporation into BT Financial Group in October 2002, was seeking to return to the market through Rismark.

Martin would not comment on the consortium’s split, except to say shareholders went “three or four separate ways for reasons I am legally constrained from revealing”.

Rismark “may still emerge in some fashion”, he adds, “as a couple of original shareholders remain involved with it”.

Describing Greenway as a “unique venture with no competitors” in the financial services industry, Martin says the company will operate as a specialist manager in residential real estate equity.

“As with Rismark International, we are intending to launch a new style of mortgage product into the market — but it will also be very different to the planned Rismark product.”

Martin also described Greenway as a “combination of an asset management company or a funds management company and an investment bank”.