Bath-based specialist lender 1pm this week reiterated its ambition to more than double in size as it posted a 77% increase in half-year pre-tax profits.
The firm, which has grown rapidly in recent years through a series of strategic acquisitions, achieved the growth in profits to £3.6m on revenue up 74% to £13.9m.
1pm now has six trading subsidiaries operating from seven sites across the UK employing 158 staff and serving more than 16,000 small and medium-sized businesses.
The firm’s operations are organised into three product groups – asset finance including vehicles, loans and commercial finance.
Last year it added invoice finance to its portfolio or products through the acquisitions of Gener8 Finance and Positive Cashflow Finance and also set up a commercial finance division.
The firm, which is listed on the London Stock Exchange’s AIM market, said the results for the six months to November 30 reflected the success of its ‘buy-and-build’ strategy through which it provides financing products to SMEs.
These include asset finance (finance leases, operating leases and hire purchase) for hard and soft assets, vehicles finance (on a broked-on basis), commercial loans and invoice finance.
During the half-year its combined new lease, hire and loan origination grew by 106% to £56.3m, while its combined ‘own-book’ assets, loans and invoice finance portfolio increased 45% to £130.1m.
Non-executive chairman John Newman said: “The interims demonstrate the successful implementation of our stated strategy of being a multi-product provider of finance to UK SMEs and continue the trend in recent years of profitable organic and strategic growth.
“The significant growth in the period has been achieved whilst holding our price, controlling credit and spreading risk.
“The board is committed to further increasing shareholder value through the stated strategy and looks forward to the second half of the financial year with optimism.”
Chief executive Ian Smith said demand for finance from UK SMEs continued to be strong.
“This level of demand is encouraging given an increasingly competitive market for alternative, non-bank finance and against the background of economic uncertainty surrounding the Brexit process,” he said.
1pm’s directors continued to see opportunities for further organic growth from cross-selling and new business.
The firm has not put a timescale on its ambition to achieve a £100m stock market valuation. Today its market capitalisation stood at just under £43m.
