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Blackpool-based business becomes recipient of the 30,000th Enterprise Finance Guarantee-backed facility as British Business Bank’s programme celebrates milestone

The British Business Banks’s Enterprise Finance Guarantee (EFG) programme has now supported smaller businesses with 30,097 facilities totalling more than £3.2 billion.

The 30,000th recipient is Blackpool-based business Euro Recycling Brokers Ltd, a waste management specialist which, since being established in 2015, has experienced rapid year-on-year growth. To help them realise their growth ambitions, the business needed a new funding partner to provide both the working capital and new funding to expand their workforce. Euro Recycling secured funding from ABN AMRO Commercial Finance (ABN AMRO), an accredited lender for the British Business Bank’s EFG programme.

EFG enables funders to provide facilities of between £1,000 and £1.2 million to smaller businesses that are viable but unable to obtain finance from their lender due to having insufficient security to meet the lender’s normal credit requirements. The provision of over 30,000 facilities, at an average value of around £105,000, has allowed smaller businesses across the UK to grow and further their business ambitions.

Ben Essien, Financial Director at Euro Recycling said: “The team at ABN AMRO was able to provide us with a flexible funding solution and the additional headroom provided by the EFG will support us in achieving continued growth. We were particularly impressed with ABN’s transparency throughout the on-boarding process and look forward to working with them as our preferred partner for growth.”

Deborah Bell, Commercial Director at ABN AMRO Commercial Finance said: “EFG is a great funding solution, providing additional headroom alongside our Receivable Finance offering, to help UK businesses achieve their growth ambitions. We’ve been a proud partner of the British Business Bank helping provide established companies finance through the EFG Scheme, since its inception in 2009, and look forward to continuing our partnership in the future.”

Euro Recycling operates exclusively within the UK and expects that its further growth will benefit the local economy as it continues to provide environmentally friendly waste management solutions.

Launched in January 2009, the EFG programme provides its accredited lenders with a Government-backed guarantee for 75% of the outstanding balance of eligible facilities, potentially enabling a ‘no’ credit decision from a lender to become a ‘yes’.

At Autumn Budget 2017, the scheme was extended for a further four years and expanded to support up to £500m of lending per year.

Reinald de Monchy, Managing Director, Guarantee & Wholesale Solutions at the British Business Bank, said: “In the near decade since the programme was launched, over 30,000 EFG backed facilities have now been made across all regions of the UK.

“The Enterprise Finance Guarantee is an important option and a real help for smaller businesses who need access to finance to grow but struggle to meet the lender’s normal security requirements. This major milestone for EFG shows how important the programme has been, and continues to be, in turning ‘no’ decisions into ‘yes’ decisions for UK smaller businesses seeking debt finance.”

More information on the EFG programme can be found in a dedicated section on the British Business Bank website.

ENDS
For further information please contact:

British Business Bank:

Scott Shearer
Senior Communications Manager
0203 772 1351 / 07770 704 761
Scott.Shearer@british-business-bank.co.uk

Suzanna Jebbitt
Communications Manager
07827 552 301
Suzanna.Jebbitt@british-business-bank.co.uk

Andy Johnson-Creek
MHP Communications
020 3128 8583
BBB@mhpc.com

Notes to editors

About the British Business Bank

The British Business Bank is the UK government’s 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. 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 is currently supporting more than £5.5bn of finance to over 78,000 smaller businesses (as at end of June 2018).

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 available to smaller businesses:

• The Business Finance Guide (published in partnership with the ICAEW and a further 21 business and finance organisations) impartially sets out the range of finance options available to businesses at all stages – from start-ups to SMEs and growing mid-sized companies. Businesses can take the interactive journey at www.thebusinessfinanceguide.co.uk.

• The new British Business Bank Finance Hub provides independent and impartial information to high-growth businesses about their finance options, featuring short films, expert guides, checklists and articles from finance providers to help make their application a success. The new site also features case studies and learnings from real businesses to guide businesses through the process of applying for growth finance.

As the holding company of the group operating under the trading name of British Business Bank, British Business Bank plc is wholly owned by HM Government and 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.

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.

The Enterprise Finance Guarantee (EFG) is administered by British Business Financial Services Limited, a wholly owned subsidiary of British Business Bank plc.

About the Enterprise Finance Guarantee

The British Business Bank’s Enterprise Finance Guarantee (EFG) facilitates business finance to smaller businesses that have a sound borrowing proposal but are unable to obtain finance from their lender due to having insufficient security to meet the lender’s normal requirements.

In this situation, the programme provides its accredited lenders with a Government-backed guarantee for 75% of the outstanding balance of eligible facilities, potentially enabling a ‘no’ credit decision from a lender to become a ‘yes’.

EFG supports a wide range of business finance products, including:

• Term loans
• Revolving facilities, such as overdrafts
• Invoice finance facilities
• Asset finance facilities

To be eligible for support via EFG, the small business must:

• Be UK-based, with turnover of no more than £41 million per annum
• Operate within an eligible industrial sector (a small number of industrial sectors are not eligible for support)
• Have a sound borrowing proposal, but inadequate security to meet a lender’s normal requirements
• Be able to confirm that they have not received other public support of de minimis State aid beyond a particular threshold depending on the sector (usually euro 200,000 equivalent) over the previous three years

The borrower pays a 2% Guarantee Fee on the outstanding capital, quarterly in advance, as a contribution towards the costs of the scheme.

EFG guarantees financial facilities to fund the future growth or expansion of a business, from £1,000 to £1.2 million. Finance terms are from three months up to 10 years for term loans and asset finance, and up to three years for revolving facilities and invoice finance.