The growing popularity of ‘hard asset’ leasing among ambitious small and medium-sized firms has prompted Bath-based specialist lender 1pm to sign an agreement giving it an extra £35m to meet demand.
The asset finance facility with the British Business Bank (BBB) means 1pm now has more than £155m available to lend to customers. 
1pm, which has a mission statement to ‘Help the UK economy grow by supporting SMEs’, said it continued to experience strong demand for asset finance including ‘hard assets’, which is funded through its Bradgate subsidiary.
‘Hard asset’ finance is linked to equipment with robust residual values after a period of use.
1pm said the BBB facility would enable Bradgate to increase the amount and diversify the range of lending for business-critical equipment used by SMEs while resolutely maintaining its strict underwriting criteria.
At the same time, deploying the funds over the life of the facility would enable the group to “significantly” reduce its blended borrowing cost, it said, while also meeting one of its management’s key operational objectives of increase the net interest margin from its lending activities.
1pm, which has been listed on the London Stock Exchange’s AIM market since 2006, secured facility through the BBB’s ENABLE funding programme.
1pm chief financial officer James Roberts, pictured, said: “1pm is delighted to be working with the British Business Bank to facilitate further funding for SMEs’ business-critical assets.
“Deploying this funding helps to achieve our on-going mission to provide access to finance to a broad range of UK SME businesses while improving shareholder returns through lower borrowing costs and, crucially, through a longer-term, secured funding line.
“The ENABLE Facility from BBB represents an important new element in the group’s mix of funding facilities, further bolstering our ability to grow our asset, loan, vehicles and invoice financing activities by providing an even wider range of cashflow solutions to the UK SME market.”
Earlier this month 1pm opened up a new funding channel after becoming the first UK-based loan originator to join Mintos, a leading online marketplace for financing business loans via global retail investors.
1pm shares rose by 1p, or 2.15%, to 47.5p yesterday on news of the new facility.
