Specialist UK lender Together has been making property loans and mortgages more accessible for 50 years. It focuses on helping underserved customers who may struggle to realise their property ambitions through big banks, with customer centricity one of Together’s core principles.
We were tasked with helping Together paint a clearer picture of its approach to its investors, particularly around the risk profile of its lending, to better convey its consistently strong performance and new sustainability strategy. Our work also needed to be visually aligned with its new brand.
We were brought in to amplify Together’s purpose, strategy, expertise and risk management – and ultimately deliver a more professional and polished annual report to its investors.
First, we inspired and educated Together with a detailed overview of best practice reporting across the FTSE to inform its next report. Next, we conducted internal and external stakeholder analysis to define the contents and to match messaging to key audiences’ requirements.
Our analysis helped us shape our thematic approach and create a page plan that did two things: share Together’s desired messaging and address key stakeholders’ questions and concerns. We also worked closely with Together’s marketing team to ensure our plan considered and aligned with the brand's new visual identity.
Together’s report opened with a clear framework that set out its purpose, vision, strategy and values, illustrated through five key case studies. They served to bring its customer profile to life and showcase Together’s caring, customer-centric approach. These stories were bolstered with disclosure on originations, the loan book profile and Together’s solid funding structure within the operating review.
We sprinkled insights, analysis and specially-commissioned market research from the leadership team throughout the report to better show the personal passion that is driving Together forward.
We also helped Together leverage its annual report to share its new ESG strategy and wider sustainability work in its first standalone sustainability report. This incorporated its first materiality assessment and four clear pillars as a framework for its disclosures. This section wove a data-backed narrative, with a thematically aligned case study, graphs and pull-out statistics and Together’s first TCFD disclosure, to show its new sustainability strategy in action.
The report was very well received internally and externally, particularly around the new purpose and sustainability strategy.
Together’s Group CEO-Designate, Gerald Grimes, said the report helped to achieve four key objectives: bringing a new corporate purpose to life, incorporating the business’s first sustainability report to launch its sustainability strategy, share Together’s family-like culture and entrepreneurial spirit and share how the business is being shaped for an exciting and sustainable future.
