The Role

We have a great opportunity for an experienced payroll professional to join our People team. The successful candidate will work closely with the People & Finance team on ensuring payroll and pension administration processes are delivered in an accurate and timely manner.

Experience in payroll preparation; providing reports; and maintaining records on a People system will be essential to the success of the role. This is an ideal opportunity for an individual who has prior payroll experience and is looking for a role which offers flexibility. The role will require the incumbent to work for 5 days over the course of the month, worked flexibly at a location of their choice within the UK.   

Key Responsibilities

• Ownership of managing and administering the end-to-end payroll process for Puma Capital Group (c. 100+ employees).
• Be the main point of contact to liaise with our payroll provider (ADP), People team and Finance team to ensure an accurate and timely monthly payroll sign-off process.
• Accurately process new starters, leavers and all relevant payroll changes including fixed and variable pay on to our payroll software (ADP). This includes developing a good understanding of our complex quarterly commission payments and annual discretionary bonus schedules for various teams across the business.
• Administer monthly net pay payments on our online banking system (RBS Bank line).
• Reconcile the monthly pension report and upload the contributions to our pension platform (Aviva).
• Administer and facilitate additional pension contribution payments to individual SIPPs (Direct Debit forms, payment memos and drafting letters).
• Manage and submit the annual year end processes e.g., P11Ds.
• Ensure that all changes are updated on employee profiles and upload monthly payslips and annual pay related statements onto our People system (HiBob).
• Help to resolve complex pay queries and issues that may arise.
• Be the main point of contact for payroll audit information requests.
• Ensure legislation requirements are adhered to and knowledge is kept up to date. 

Experience, Skills and attributes required.

• Extensive working knowledge of current UK payroll legislation including statutory obligations, pensions/auto-enrolment.
• Highly proficient in all Microsoft Office products (Excel) and ADP payroll software is essential.
• Experience with HiBob or a similar People/HR system is strongly preferred.
• Ability to maintain confidentiality and exercise extreme discretion.
• Strong communication skills.
• Accuracy and strong attention to detail is essential.

About Us

Puma Capital Group is an award-winning investment manager, and a leading provider of growth capital to UK SMEs and property finance to developers and real estate investors. 

Our Group Businesses

The Puma Capital Group comprises four businesses focused on delivering long-term sustainable growth for our investors and partners, namely: Puma Investments, Puma Property Finance, Puma Private Equity and Puma Public Markets. Together they manage more than £900 million in assets, have lent more than £1 billion of development funding, and have assisted dozens of businesses across the UK elevate and build to deliver on their brilliant ideas.

Puma Capital Group has a strong track record in:

(a)   Growth Capital for UK SMEs;

(b)   Property Finance;

(c)    Public Markets. 

Puma Investments, one of our Group businesses, raises funds from a variety of sources including wealth managers and IFAs from the very large (e.g. SJP, Barclays Wealth, Tilney, Cazenove) through regional players to the very small independents, from execution-only brokers and from HNWs.  We also work with leading wrap platforms (including Fidelity, Standard Life, Ascentric and Transact). 

In addition to raising capital from private clients, the Puma Capital Group has attracted £500m of institutional funding.

Our Products

As a business, our origins lie in the management of Venture Capital Trusts (“VCTs”). In fact, Puma itself grew out of Shore Capital Group which started operating VCTs in 2004. We now have 14 VCTs under our belt and we launched our latest — Puma Alpha VCT — in 2019.

Over the years, we’ve also branched out into other investments, such as Puma Alpha EIS — our Enterprise Investment Scheme (“EIS”) offer, the Puma AIM Inheritance Tax Service — which invests in the Alternative Investment Market (“AIM”), and the Puma Heritage Estate Planning Service — which finances professional property developers. 

Indeed, we are proud to have been recognised and awarded for our various offers, most recently having won Highly Commended: Best Venture Capital Trust (Investment Life & Pensions Money Facts Awards 2019), Highly Commended: Best AIM IHT Portfolio Service – Tax-efficient and Estate Planning Specialist (Investment Week Tax Efficiency Awards 2018/19) and Finalist/Winner of Best BR Investment Manager – Listed for seven years running (Growth Investor Awards, 2016, 2017, 2018, 2019, 2020, 2021, 2022). 

We take seriously the importance of understanding our clients, investors, markets and our products. Further information about our business can be found on our website Puma Capital Group. 

Our Business Divisions:

Puma Investments, as set out above, raises funds from a variety of sources including wealth managers and IFAs from the very large (e.g. SJP, Barclays Wealth, Tilney, Cazenove) through regional players to the very small independents, from execution-only brokers and from HNWs.  We also work with leading wrap platforms (including Fidelity, Standard Life, Ascentric and Transact).

Puma Private Equity is a growth capital investor which partners with UK SMEs. We typically invest £2m to £10m per round into established, high growth businesses. We invest across most sectors with a focus on companies with a proven product and clear growth plan. www.pumaprivateequity.co.uk

Our Puma Property Finance business delivers development loans from £5 million to £35 million to finance residential, commercial and specialist sector projects such as hotels, student accommodation and healthcare, including care homes and retirement living. We offer three core loan products: stretch senior development loans; pre-development bridge finance for site acquisition; and post-development exit finance.  We have also secured an institutional funding line of up to £200 million for deployment in our property finance division.  We have completed over £1 billion of loans since inception and continue to grow both our retail and institutional capital sources.  https://pumapropertyfinance.co.uk/

Our Puma Public Markets business focuses on our award-winning Puma AIM IHT Service which is a discretionary portfolio service that seeks to mitigate Inheritance tax by investing in a carefully selected portfolio of AIM listed shares. 

A business in growth mode

Puma Capital Group has grown significantly and recently reached its 10-year milestone. We are now over 100 people across the Group.  In addition, we benefit from being part of a larger Group (Shore Capital) able to draw on the substantial resource, brand, and infrastructure. 

As such, it is an exceptionally exciting time for our business: combining our already very strong track record with ambitious growth strategies, we have already developed our market share substantially and are looking to build further on our success.

Who we are

The team at Puma are bright, ambitious and passionate about what we do.  Our non-hierarchical and meritocratic approach results in a close-knit team with a unified goal. We believe that success is produced by and belongs to all.

While our team has grown significantly, our values remain the same:

·       Collaboration: Working together towards the same goal, sharing knowledge and expertise

·       Aspiration: Striving for excellence in everything we do

·       Respect: Fostering an environment where everyone behaves with respect and integrity

·       Value Creation: Delivering outstanding results for our internal and external partners.

These values underpin our business, and they inform every aspect of our behaviour — from how we manage money to the types of companies we support.

We continue to strive towards being a more diverse, equitable and inclusive workplace for everyone with a focus on inclusivity and belonging at all levels for all staff.  We focus on a number of initiatives including training, our policies and procedures and having a culture that focuses on authenticity for all our team members.  We’re excited to continue to improve our commitment as allies and create a workplace where everyone is able to bring their whole self to work.

In addition, while it is a given that rewards are highly competitive and based on performance, we also believe in benefits that reward you in a more rounded way; as an example, our team get their birthdays off and personal development grants (for sushi making classes, photography, golf lessons or any interests you have that make you, you). 

As well as the standard benefits including an enhanced pension, life assurance, private healthcare etc., other examples of supporting our staff include an enhanced maternity and paternity policy as well as fully paid time off for miscarriages and baby loss.  We are keen to support our people through various times in their lives from moving house (with paid time off) all the way to key events such as growing their families and menopause.  Our team follow a hybrid working model where they are (with their manager) responsible for the days they are in the office or on ‘site’ (usually three days) and when they work from home. 

We also take our responsibilities seriously, actively fundraising for our chosen charity of the year through a variety of activities as well as other socially responsible initiatives including partnering with a number of mentoring schemes where staff are able to support students through their educational journeys.