The British Business Bank has agreed a facility increase that will provide £29.4 million of funding to smaller UK businesses, through an existing ENABLE Funding transaction with independent specialist finance provider, Time Finance.
The additional funding brings the total small business funding available through the facility to £64.4m. This further supports Time Finance in growing its pipeline and its proportion of own-book origination, so that it can provide more asset finance to UK smaller businesses.
The initial transaction, agreed in March 2018, was to provide £35m of funding. This was used to significantly expand Time Finance’s asset finance lending to businesses across the UK small business sector, primarily for those seeking hard asset finance – which includes equipment with robust residual values after a period of use.
“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 UK businesses with further funding for their business-critical equipment in one of our more secured and key strategic growth areas,” says James Roberts, Chief Financial Officer at Time Finance.
The first £35 million facility was provided through Time Finance plc’s wholly owned subsidiary Time Hard Asset Finance Limited. As part of the increase announced today, the ENABLE Funding facility will be extended to Time Vendor Finance Limited (also a wholly owned subsidiary of Time Finance plc) to fund a broader range of assets, including soft assets.
This transaction also contributes to the British Business Bank’s objective of driving sustainable growth by increasing the supply of finance and creating a more diverse finance market for UK smaller businesses.
“We’re very pleased to agree this facility increase with Time Finance, which will help them to provide a more diverse range of asset finance options to small businesses across the UK. We’re also excited to see the growth this will help stimulate across the sector through the ENABLE Funding programme,” says Reinald de Monchy, Managing Director, Guarantee and Wholesale Solutions at the British Business Bank.
Launched in 2014, the ENABLE Funding programme supports the British Business Bank’s key objective to drive sustainable growth and prosperity across the UK by supporting access to finance for smaller businesses.
The ENABLE Funding programme warehouses newly originated finance receivables from participating originators. Once the portfolio has sufficient scale, it aims to refinance a portion of its funding on the capital markets, helping smaller finance providers to tap into institutional investors’ funds.
The British Business Bank is the UK government’s economic development bank. Established in November 2014, its mission is to drive sustainable growth and prosperity across the UK and to enable the transition to a net zero economy, by improving access to finance for smaller businesses. Its remit is to design, deliver and efficiently manage UK-wide smaller business access to finance programmes for the UK government.
The British Business Bank’s core programmes support over £12.4 billion of finance to more than 90,000 smaller businesses.
As well as increasing the supply and diversity of finance for UK smaller businesses through its programmes, the Bank works to raise awareness of finance options available to smaller businesses. The British Business Bank Finance Hub provides independent and impartial information to businesses about finance options, featuring short films, expert guides, checklists and articles from finance providers to help make their application a success.
The British Business Bank is also responsible for administering the government’s three Coronavirus loan schemes and its Future Fund, together responsible for delivering £80.4 billion in finance to 1.67 million businesses. These schemes are now closed to new applications.
