Relationships in the financial sector are often forged through shared interests or personal connections. For Stuart Knight, co-founder of Haibun Partners in 2005, it was insomnia that cemented his Sturgeon story. During the years Haibun was under Sturgeon’s purview, he would often message Sturgeon Ventures founder Seonaid Mackenzie in the wee small hours with a business idea or passing thought. More often than not, Seonaid would reply almost immediately.
“I don’t sleep much and clearly neither does Seonaid,” he laughs as he recalls their unusual communications. “It always amazed me. You’d think nobody else in the world was awake at that time, but she usually was.”
This small vignette reveals why Sturgeon’s Appointed Representatives or ARs speak so highly of Seonaid and her team. Many commercial colleagues wouldn’t bother to reply in the early hours, but Seonaid is a rare problem solver in Stuart’s eyes. For entrepreneurial firms operating in financial services during the early 2000s, balancing investment activity, regulatory oversight and commercial partnerships could quickly become complicated.
Alongside the growth of Haibun Partners’ specialist investment business, Stuart and his co-founders Matthew Cureton, Jason Rungasamy and Jim Henwood were also involved in wealth management activities connected to Portbury Wealth Management and St. James’s Place. Sturgeon Ventures provided the compliance infrastructure and regulatory oversight that allowed the business to evolve safely through changing structures, FCA requirements and commercial arrangements.
“There were quite a few moving parts,” Stuart recalls. “There was the regulatory side, commercial relationships and different permissions all happening together.” For Stuart, Seonaid’s real value was her ability to combine technical regulatory expertise with commercial understanding. “Most people in compliance give you an obstacle,” he says. “Seonaid would give us a path.”
Navigating the landscape with Sturgeon Ventures
For many boutique firms entering financial services in the early 2000s, the regulatory landscape was difficult to navigate, particularly for smaller entrepreneurial businesses trying to establish themselves. Over the years, Seonaid and the Sturgeon team have supported a wide range of investment and advisory firms through increasingly complex regulatory requirements. Sturgeon Ventures offers an Appointed Representative hosting model enabling smaller firms to operate under the regulatory permissions and oversight of an authorised principal firm while they establish themselves. Widely recognised as the pioneer of regulatory incubation in the UK financial services sector, Sturgeon Ventures helps firms navigate the Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) authorisation, compliance and operational structure.
“Seonaid always understood the regulatory landscape inside out,” Stuart says. “But more importantly, she knew how to navigate it. She helped us through all the FCA applications and approvals. Back then it was probably a bit easier than it is today, but it was still complicated enough if you didn’t know what you were doing.”
For smaller entrepreneurial firms operating in financial services, those transitions could easily become overwhelming without the right guidance, which Seonaid and her team provided. “Seonaid has a rare ability to understand both the technical regulatory requirements and the practical realities of running a business. She always approached things commercially,” he explains. “Not in the sense of cutting corners, quite the opposite in fact, but she understood businesses were trying to move forwards. Some people just tell you why you can’t do something. She’d explain how you could do it properly.”
A changing financial environment
Wealth management firms at the time were operating in an increasingly complex environment of FCA oversight, appointed representative structures and distribution partnerships. Haibun Partners would go on to evolve through several regulatory and structural changes over the years, including periods of direct authorisation and appointed representative status as the business developed, before its acquisition by Titan Wealth in 2022.
But throughout changing markets, evolving regulation and multiple business transitions, Seonaid has remained a constant presence and Sturgeon Ventures has continued to be intertwined with the team and its visions. “When Haibun Partners was acquired by Titan Wealth, Seonaid showed us a path to bring a Venture Capital Trust to market,” recalls Stuart. With Titan Alternatives listed as main promoter in the prospectus, Stuart on the Board of the Fund, and Sturgeon Ventures as the Alternative Investment Fund Manager (AIFM), the team played a central role in establishing the VCT and driving the majority of its initial fundraise. The team is now heading into new chapters.
As Stuart says, it’s not an industry you can just casually step into. “You need somebody who really knows how it works from the inside and who understands what you’re trying to achieve,” he says. “We’d tell Seonaid the destination and she’d give us the coordinates.”
And occasionally, she’d even provide them at four in the morning.
