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ThinCats closes c.£700m funding facility using the British Business Bank’s ENABLE Guarantee programme

Press release 19 September 2023

ThinCats, a leading alternative lender, has agreed a new warehouse facility with Citi and Barclays Bank PLC (“Barclays”) supported by a guarantee through the British Business Bank’s ENABLE Guarantee programme. This new facility supports lending of up to £696m for mid-sized smaller businesses in the UK, making it one of the largest, dedicated funding lines with a non-bank lender.

Citi and Barclays are jointly providing senior funding and ThinCats is using its own capital to provide junior funding, with a small portion of the junior funding also provided by a leading UK credit fund.

This is ThinCats’ second transaction with support from the ENABLE Guarantee programme to facilitate lending to UK mid-sized smaller businesses.

The ENABLE Guarantee programme is designed to encourage banks and other lenders to increase their lending to smaller businesses by reducing the amount of capital or junior funding required for such lending. Under an ENABLE Guarantee, the UK Government takes on a portion of the risk in a transaction supporting loans to smaller businesses, in return for a fee.

Despite macro headwinds we continue to see strong demand from mid-sized businesses to fund organic growth opportunities and for merger and acquisition transactions, with considerable follow-on funding for existing borrowers. The size of this new funding reflects the maturity of our business in terms of scale and our strong overall performance.

Mid-sized SMEs businesses are a critical contributor to economic growth and rightly deserve support via the British Business Bank’s ENABLE Guarantee programme. ENABLE does what it says on the tin; in this case enabling alternative lenders like ThinCats, working alongside banks, to provide bespoke lending at scale to support UK businesses.

Ravi Anand Managing Director, ThinCats
We are very happy to be part of this innovative transaction with ThinCats, which is the first of its kind under the programme to involve a direct guarantee on a portion of the liabilities in the funding structure. The guarantee will benefit mid-sized businesses across the UK by increasing available funding, which will support wider economic growth. Reinald de Monchy Managing Director, Guarantee and Wholesale Solutions, British Business Ban

Further Information

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Notes to editors

About ThinCats

ThinCats is an established alternative lender dedicated to funding SMEs with business loans from £1m up to £15m using pioneering data, personal relationships and a pragmatic lending process. ThinCats’ progressive approach has already enabled SMEs to borrow more than £1.4 billion. www.thincats.com

ThinCats is a trading name of ThinCats Limited.

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 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 billion1  of finance to more than 90,000 smaller businesses2 .

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.

British Business Bank plc is a public limited company registered in England and Wales, registration number 08616013, registered office at Steel City House, West Street, Sheffield, S1 2GQ. Wholly owned by HM government, the Bank and its subsidiaries are not banking institutions and do not operate as such. They are not authorised or regulated by the Prudential Regulation Authority (PRA) or the Financial Conduct Authority (FCA). A complete legal structure chart for the group can be found at the British Business Bank.

This statement and the transaction described above does not constitute or imply any endorsement, warranty or recommendation by the UK Government, the British Business Bank plc, its subsidiaries or any other party of ThinCats, Citi or Barclays Bank, or their respective products or services.

The ENABLE Guarantee programme is managed by British Business Financial Services Ltd, a wholly owned subsidiary of British Business Bank plc, on behalf of, and with the financial backing of, the Secretary of State for Business and Trade.

  • 1

    Figures as at the end of March 2023

  • 2

    Figures as at the end of March 2023

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