News

British Business Bank agrees facility with 1pm to provide £35m of additional funding to smaller UK businesses

1pm plc, the AIM listed independent specialist provider of finance facilities to the SME sector, has today announced the agreement of a new asset finance facility with the British Business Bank that will provide £35m of additional funding to smaller businesses.

The facility, made under the British Business Bank’s ENABLE programme, will enable 1pm plc to significantly expand its asset finance lending to businesses across the UK smaller business sector, primarily for those seeking “hard asset” finance (equipment with robust residual values after a period of use) through 1pm Group’s subsidiary Bradgate Business Finance Ltd.

Bernie Skivington, Director, Guarantee & Wholesale Solutions at the British Business Bank, said: “The British Business Bank works to increase the flow of finance to the UK’s smaller businesses. Our ENABLE Funding programme is an important part of our support to asset finance providers like 1pm plc as they scale up their lending to smaller businesses, helping those businesses invest in the equipment they need to grow and succeed.”

As part of British Business Bank’s key objective to diversify finance markets for smaller UK businesses, the ENABLE Funding programme helps smaller providers of business finance to do more to support smaller UK businesses.

These providers often lack the scale required to access capital markets – a key source of funding for lending institutions – in a cost-efficient manner. ENABLE Funding warehouses newly-originated finance receivables from a number of smaller business finance providers, bringing them together into a new structure. Once the structure has sufficient scale, it will refinance a portion of its funding on the capital markets. This means the British Business Bank can help small finance providers to tap institutional investors’ funds.

ENDS

British Business Bank

James Pignon, MHP Communications, +44 20 3128 8755, bbb@mhpc.com

Scott Shearer, British Business Bank, Scott.Shearer@british-business-bank.co.uk

Notes to Editors

About the British Business Bank:

The British Business Bank is the UK’s national economic development bank. Established in November 2014, its mission is to make finance markets for smaller businesses work more effectively, enabling those businesses to prosper, grow and build UK economic activity. Our remit is to design, deliver and efficiently manage UK-wide smaller business access to finance programmes for the UK government.

The British Business Bank is currently supporting over 65,000 businesses, working through over 100 finance partners. Its programmes support over £4bn of finance to UK smaller businesses and participate in a further £6.6bn of finance to UK small mid-cap businesses.

As well as increasing both supply and diversity of finance for UK smaller businesses through its programmes, the Bank works to raise awareness of the finance options, including asset finance, available to smaller businesses. It has published the Business Finance Guide (in partnership with the ICAEW, and a further 21 business and finance organisations). This guide impartially sets out the range finance options available to businesses – from start-ups to SMEs and growing mid-sized companies. Take the interactive journey at www.thebusinessfinanceguide.co.uk/bbb or download/print a copy.

As the holding company of the group operating under the trading name of British Business Bank, it is a development bank wholly owned by HM Government which is not authorised or regulated by the Prudential Regulation Authority (PRA) or the Financial Conduct Authority (FCA). The British Business Bank operates under its own brand name through a number of subsidiaries, one of which is authorised and regulated by the FCA. ENABLE Funding is administered by British Business Financial Services Limited, a wholly owned subsidiary of British Business Bank plc.

British Business Bank plc and its principal operating subsidiaries are not banking institutions and do not operate as such. A complete legal structure chart for British Business Bank plc and its subsidiaries can be found on the British Business Bank plc website.

About the British Business Bank and Asset Finance:

As well as supporting small Asset Finance providers through its commercial arm’s Investment programme, the British Business Bank helps Asset Finance providers to access capital markets funding more cost efficiently through its ENABLE Funding programme. It also recently introduced a new asset finance variant of its flagship Enterprise Finance Guarantee programme.

The British Business Bank/ICAEW/UK Finance guide to Asset Finance for advisers and businesses is downloadable from the British Business Bank website.

About 1pm:

1pm plc is a group of established independent finance companies focused on providing SMEs with accessible funding to add value to their businesses. All customers must have good credit histories and proven ability to repay their finance commitments. The 1pm plc mission statement is, ‘Helping the UK economy grow by supporting SMEs.’

More information is available on the Company website www.1pm.co.uk