Member Article

New Yorkshire business fund lends over £1 million in its first month

New Yorkshire-based business lending fund, TFG Capital, which launched in September, has made business loans of over £1.1 million in in its first month.

TFG Capital was launched by financier James Mortimore with £7.5 million.

The firm, which has offices in Leeds and Doncaster, expected the majority of its transactions to be for loans to northern SMEs for amounts between £50k and £3 million over terms up to two years.

The fund is intended to plug the funding gap for businesses seeking expansion and opportunity capital, but which are unable to obtain bank support.

Within a month the new lender has already completed six debt lending deals averaging almost £200k.

James Mortimore said: “We knew there was a demand for flexible secured lending to good businesses, and the early deals we have been able to close are evidence of the huge need for alternative business funding.

“Most of the deals completed so far are for between six and twelve months, and all have been to leverage an opportunity, provide working capital or to grow a business rapidly where a bank would be unable to respond fast enough.

“One company wanted to expand its premises to enable rapid growth, another needed to leverage stock to buy more raw materials, one firm has a great debtor book but needed working capital and another needed to leverage its assets to fund an MBO.

“Several of the deals were completed with firms here in Yorkshire, but one was done with a business on the South coast and another in the Midlands, so there is obviously a shortage of flexible finance elsewhere in the UK as well.”

The fund has a strong pipeline of deals that it expects to close by the end of the year, with more than £6 million available for further lending from the initial fund.

This was posted in Bdaily's Members' News section by Clare Burnett .