Time Finance, the Bath-headquartered alternative finance lender, is to boost its backing for small, expanding businesses following a major increase in its own funding.
The group, which specialises in asset, loan and invoice finance products, now has total facilities worth more than £200m after finalising agreements with its funding partners.
These include the British Business Bank, which has extended its £35m ‘hard asset’ facility with Time finance to £64m, which will also make funds available for the group's vendor finance offering.
Time Finance, which is listed on the London Stock Exchange, said the asset facility extension with the bank was also on more flexible terms.
In a statement to shareholders, the firm said this facility, along with further recently renewed and enhanced facilities with some of its other long-standing and supportive funding partners, would provide more than £40m of new funding capacity, taking it to £200m-plus.
Time Finance also said it continued to experience strong demand for asset finance particularly in the 'hard assets' sub-division of its asset division.
The deployment of this facility would enable it to continue to meet an increasing demand for business-critical equipment used by small and medium-sized businesses while “resolutely maintaining” its strict underwriting criteria.
Time Finance chief financial officer James Roberts, pictured, said: “Over the past five years we have developed a strong working relationship with the British Business Bank and I am delighted this will now be able to continue for the foreseeable future.
“The enhanced facility will enable Time Finance to provide additional funding to UK SMEs for their business-critical equipment in one of our more secured and key strategic growth areas.
“With the British Business Bank facility being a cornerstone of the group’s funding mix, we hope to help many more UK businesses and thereby further improve our shareholder returns.”
In February, Time Finance announced it had achieved a record lending book of £188.6m after several months of sustained growth.
At the same time it announced that its pre-tax profit for the six months to last November climbed by 35% to £2.7m on revenue up 19% at £15.7m.
The firm, which grew rapidly through a series of acquisitions in the late 2010s under its previous name of 1pm, also said its own-book lending was up by nearly 30% to £47.3m over the same period.
