Business fund lending tops £1m in first month as SMEs reach out

TFG Capital was launched by financier James Mortimore in September with £7.5m immediately available to plug the funding gap for businesses seeking expansion and opportunity capital, but which are unable to obtain bank support.

Within a month the new lender has already completed six debt lending deals averaging almost £200,000.

“We knew there was a demand for flexible secured lending to good businesses, and the early deals we have been able to close are evidence of the huge need for alternative business funding,” said Mr Mortimore.

The firm, which has offices in Leeds and Doncaster, expected the majority of its transactions to be for loans to northern SMEs for amounts between £50,000 and £3m over terms up to two years.

“Most of the deals completed so far are for between six and 12 months, and all have been to leverage an opportunity, provide working capital or to grow a business rapidly where a bank would be unable to respond fast enough,” he said.

“One company wanted to expand its premises to enable rapid growth, another needed to leverage stock to buy more raw materials, one firm has a great debtor book but needed working capital and another needed to leverage its assets to fund an MBO.

He added: “We have seen over 30 potential lending requests...and we expect many more of these will complete in the coming weeks.”

There is currently more than £6m available to businesses for further lending from the initial fund.