News

British Business Bank increases ENABLE Funding activity to Henry Howard Finance

The British Business Bank, the UK government-owned economic development bank, has today announced a second £51m tranche of funding for Henry Howard Finance under the Bank’s ENABLE Funding programme. The transaction is the latest made under the programme, which aims to increase the supply of finance to smaller businesses in the UK looking to acquire business critical assets to boost their growth.

The facility, partially guaranteed by the European Investment Fund, comes on top of an existing £51m asset finance facility granted in 2016 and will allow Henry Howard Finance to extend its leasing and asset finance offering to a larger portfolio of UK smaller businesses.

One of British Business Bank’s key objectives is to diversify finance markets for smaller UK businesses. The ENABLE Funding programme helps to meet this objective by allowing smaller providers of business finance to be more active, and compete with larger providers. Providers of finance to smaller businesses often lack the scale required to access capital markets – a key source of funding for lending institutions – in a cost-efficient manner. The programme warehouses newly-originated finance receivables from different originators – bringing them together into a new structure, before refinancing a portion of its funding on the capital markets when it reaches sufficient scale.

Mark Catton, CEO at Henry Howard Finance, said:

“We are delighted to agree this additional facility with the British Business Bank. We are proud to support SMEs in the next chapters of their business success stories and this facility will allow more companies to grow and prosper.”

Reinald de Monchy, Managing Director of Guarantee & Wholesale Solutions British Business Bank, said:

“Our ENABLE Funding programme helps support smaller finance providers who share our goal of increasing the supply of finance to smaller businesses. This increased facility will allow Henry Howard Finance to continue to build on their track record in providing much needed asset finance allowing these types of businesses to realise their growth potential.

“Since the first transaction in September 2015, the ENABLE Funding programme has supported lending to over 17,000 businesses and has committed more than £444m to smaller finance providers.”

British Business Bank programmes are supporting more than £5.2bn of finance to nearly 75,000 smaller businesses.

ENDS

For further information:

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

Henry Howard Finance

Angela Boffy, Henry Howard Finance, aboffy@hhf.uk.com

Notes to Editors

About Henry Howard Finance Group

Newport-headquartered Henry Howard Finance (HHF) was founded in 1996 and is one of the UK’s largest independent finance houses. HHF was acquired by London-based private equity firm Cabot Square Capital in 2014.

HHF has three business divisions that support the SME market with access to finance, equipment and commercial funding services.

• Henry Howard Asset Finance provides funding for business-critical equipment, including industrial machinery, construction equipment and commercial vehicles.

• Henry Howard Vendor Finance provides facilities to support equipment vendors.

• Henry Howard Retail Finance supports retail and vendor suppliers in the shop-fitting and retail equipment market.

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 almost £5.2bn of finance to nearly 75,000 smaller businesses (as at end of March 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 everything high-growth businesses need to know 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 ENABLE Funding Programme is administered by British Business Financial Services Limited, a wholly owned subsidiary of British Business Bank plc.