Concentrating on its core products has resulted in Bath-headquartered alternative lender Time Finance growing at a faster rate than expected, with pre-tax profits soaring by 172%.
The firm, which specialises in asset, loan and invoice finance products, clocked up profits of £3m in the nine-months ended 28 February on revenues up 28% to £20m.
In a trading update, Time Finance said the results reflected the continued success of streamlining to focus on core, own-book lending – as a result it enjoyed “significant” increases in its lending book, revenues and profits and across other key performance indicators.
The group, which grew rapidly through a series of acquisitions in the late 2010s under its previous name of 1pm, changed its strategy last year to concentrate on the key initiatives of investing in improved IT infrastructure to enable the business to scale more easily and maximising its multi-product offering as well as its own-book lending.
Its own-book lending origination rose by 34% to £52.9m in the period while its gross lending-book was up 26% to £157.2m.
It said the increase in revenue continued to be driven primarily by growth in its invoice finance division and the ‘hard asset’ subset of its asset division. Both growth areas operate in the larger-ticket, more secured lending arena.
Directors said the progress had given them further confidence that full-year trading would now be further ahead of the latest market expectations, with pre-tax profits for the full year now expected to be not less than £3.6m.
Time Finance chief executive officer Ed Rimmer said: “I am delighted to report that the group’s ongoing trading performance during Q3 has enabled the board to confirm that the expected results for the full year to 31 May are being further uplifted.
“This is the second time since the start of the calendar year that these have been raised, bearing testament to the successful implementation of our medium-term strategy.
“Despite the well-publicised wider macro-economic ‘headwinds’, the group has continued to grow at a faster rate than expected, demonstrating that demand for finance from UK businesses is robust.
“The group’s multi-product tailored offering to UK SMEs, its own-book lending strategy and its quality of service have become ever more appreciated by our introducers and I am confident that we can deliver increasing value for our shareholders.”
Time Finance will provide an update on trading for the full year to 31 May in late June 2023.
