Nigel Le Quesne, CEO of JTC Group, visited Harvard University in October 2019 to participate in the teaching of the Harvard MBA case study on JTC

When Nigel Le Quesne first envisioned shared ownership for all of his employees in 1998, he genuinely wanted everyone to have skin in the game.

As CEO of the JTC Group, a multi-jurisdictional provider of fund, corporate and private client services with over 900 employees in 23 offices in 20 jurisdictions, including the US, Nigel embraced and championed the philosophy of shared ownership and put in place a number of ‘guiding principles’ to bring that philosophy to life and create JTC’s unique culture. This includes helping every employee maximize their full potential; a commitment to meritocracy; the belief that the company comes before the individual; embracing a stakeholder mentality and committing to being entrepreneurial and having a can-do attitude on behalf of clients. Put simply, shared ownership clearly aligns the interests of clients, employees and other stakeholders.

“I strongly believe that people who own a stake in the business they work for will care more about its success, which can have a particular impact in our fee-earning professional service business,” said Nigel, who joined JTC as its fifth employee in 1991.

“The guiding principles drive each other and act as lenses through which we measure performance and judge new ideas,” added David Vieira, Chief Communications Officer of JTC.

At JTC every permanent employee is a direct owner of the business and over 20% of JTC stock is owned by staff. This unique shared ownership model aligns JTC fully with the interests of their clients and has been a service differentiator for the business for over 20 years. In 2019, JTC’s shared ownership was chosen as the subject of a Harvard Business School case study written by a team led by Professor Ethan Bernstein. The case study was taught to students on its world-renowned full-time MBA program for the first time in October 2019. This independent analysis of JTC’s shared ownership model is completely unique in the fund administration sector.

Success in a shared ownership environment

While shared ownership programs are not unheard of today, they were uncommon in JTC’s industry, especially during the 1990s. The success of JTC has been built upon shared ownership and the belief that people are at the heart of the company. This commitment to shared ownership has held steadfast from inception to IPO and beyond. In fact, after a successful IPO in 2018, Nigel and his leadership team have continued to evolved and develop the company’s shared ownership tools to their new public markets’ environment.

The company is currently running its third Employee Benefit Trust (EBT), which was seeded at the time of IPO, ensuring that 100 percent of JTC employees remained direct stakeholders in the business and carrying the model into its 20th year.

For Nigel, there was never a question that shared ownership would be preserved after JTC’s IPO, as he viewed it as the basis of JTC’s decades-long success.

As well as supporting the high quality professional service ethos that has seen JTC grow at impressive rates organically (over 10% for the most recent reporting period of H1 2020), it has also supported JTC’s ambitions to expand its global reach through selective acquisitions. Shared ownership helps to make JTC an attractive acquirer and provides a real and tangible advantage in acquisitions to win over the workforce, who often had no prior ownership and welcome them in.

“There is something uniquely cross-cultural about shared ownership,” said Kobus Cronje, managing director, South Africa, JTC. “Shared ownership has really been transformational; due to our local history of inequalities in South Africa, I think it almost means more for us here. We felt a boost in terms of drive, work ethics. It’s visible in our KPIs, like the uptick in administered entities per employee or decrease of staff turnover.”

JTC also saw benefits of shared ownership for talent management. Shared ownership is a big part of hiring conversations, and explains the company’s culture and the new hires’ place in it. The meritocratic approach means employees do not have to wait for someone else to be promoted, or leave, or retire to progress and be promoted themselves.

For all these reasons – and the fact that in the 20 years since their creation, the EBTs, rollovers and shared ownership programs have created over £350 million of value.

When JTC was admitted to trade as a public company on the London Stock Exchange (LSE), Nigel reaffirmed his commitment to shared ownership: “We have a very clear and proven strategy of investing in our people and this will remain the case in our life as a public company. We look forward to delivering value for all stakeholders in the business in the years to come.”

To this day, JTC continues its core values as a publicly listed, award-winning provider of fund, corporate and private wealth services to institutional and private clients. With over 900 people working across a global office network and trusted to administer more than $130 billion of client assets.

This past April, JTC acquired NES Financial, which is now the company’s North American division. JTC Americas, Formerly NES Financial, is the leading provider of third-party administrative solutions to US impact investment sectors. Its purpose-built solutions streamline the administration of funds in these complex and specialized markets — private equity, Opportunity Zones, EB-5 investment and 1031 tax-deferred exchange. With this acquisition, JTC now has a presence in the Silicon Valley and Boston areas, and continues to champion their belief in shared ownership across the pond.

Get More

Read more about the acquisition of NES Financial by JTC Group by visiting the FAQ center or visit jtcgroup.com

For more information on JTC Americas, follow us on Facebook ,Twitter, and LinkedIn!