Commercial Finance
Every facility below is arranged the same way: structured around what the business or the property can support, packaged before it reaches a lender, and handled by one broker to completion.
Buying, refinancing or building out property, held personally or through a company.
Short-term lending secured on property, used when a purchase cannot wait for a mortgage. Auction deadlines, chain breaks, a refurbishment before refinance, or a building no term lender will touch in its current state. The exit is what the lender underwrites, so the exit is what we evidence first.
1 to 24 months · up to around 75% LTV gross · first or second charge
Term lending on commercial property, whether you occupy it or let it. Owner-occupied cases are read from your trading accounts, investment cases from the rent and the strength of the tenant. Two different assessments, and the pack has to answer the right one.
3 to 25 years · up to around 75% LTV · capital and interest or part interest-only
Investment lending on residential property held through a limited company or an SPV, including HMOs and multi-unit blocks. Portfolio landlords are underwritten on the whole portfolio, not just the property being bought, so the portfolio schedule matters as much as the valuation.
2 to 30 years · up to around 75% LTV · ICR typically 125% to 145%
Funding released in stages against a monitoring surveyor's sign-off, sized against the end value of the finished scheme and the cost of building it. Senior and mezzanine can be structured together where the equity needs stretching, which is how schemes above the headline range get done.
6 to 24 months · up to around 60% to 70% LTGDV · up to around 90% to 100% of build costs
Working capital, equipment and cash tied up in the ledger.
Term lending to a trading business for stock, growth, a tax bill or to refinance debt that costs more than it should. This is the facility where structuring around cash flow does the most work: the repayment has to fit the months the business actually has, not an average.
1 to 6 years unsecured, longer secured · unsecured typically to around £500,000
Funding an asset over the period it earns, rather than paying for it out of working capital. Hire purchase, finance lease, operating lease, or a refinance that releases cash from equipment you already own. What the asset is changes the terms more than most owners expect.
1 to 7 years · hire purchase, lease or refinance · deposit from 0% to around 20%
A facility that advances most of the value of an approved invoice as soon as it is raised. Factoring if you want the lender to collect, invoice discounting if you would rather your customers never knew. The lender underwrites your debtors more closely than it underwrites you.
Advance typically up to around 85% to 90% of approved invoices
An advance against future card takings, repaid as a share of each day's card settlement. It suits hospitality, retail and leisure because repayment moves with trade. It is priced on a factor rate, not an interest rate, and it is often dearer than a term loan. We will say when it is.
Typically 3 to 18 months · repaid as a percentage of card takings · factor rate priced
Buying a business, and funding the gap between paying a supplier and being paid.
Funding a purchase of shares or trade and assets: a competitor, a management buy-out or buy-in, or buying out a partner. Lenders underwrite the business as it will look after completion, so the pack has to show the combined position, not two sets of accounts side by side.
Senior debt on the target's cash flow and assets · often alongside deferred consideration
Facilities that cover the gap between paying a supplier and being paid by the end buyer. Supplier payments, letters of credit and stock finance, drawn per transaction. The lender looks at the trade cycle, the supplier and the buyer, which is why the order paperwork carries the case.
Typically 60 to 180 days per transaction · supplier payment, letters of credit, stock finance
A pack is not a pile of documents. It is a short argument for why a lender should write this facility, with the evidence sitting behind each claim in the order a credit paper reads them. Accounts and bank statements go in with the movements already explained, the security is evidenced, and the exit or the affordability is tested before anyone instructs a valuation.
The Bridging page sets out an example in full: what the lender assesses on one side, what we prepare on the other.
Describe the purchase, the purpose or the gap you are funding. We will come back with which of the ten fits, and which two or three lenders would look at it.
