Ultimate Finance embark on £25m partnership with Sheffield’s British Business Bank

Ultimate Finance Group, which opened an office in Leeds at the beginning of 2015, has entered a new partnership with the Sheffield-headquartered British Business Bank.

British Business Bank Investments Ltd, which is the commercial arm of the Government’s economic development bank, has enabled Ultimate Finance to secure an additional £25m debt facility placing, allowing the group to lend considerably more to SMEs.

The funding is being provided as a three year syndicated back-to-back facility with Lloyds Bank, increasing the total facilities for Ultimate Finance’s invoice finance business to £75m.

Speaking about the partnership, Jeremy Coombes, chief executive officer of Ultimate Finance Group, said: “The British Business Banks’s route to market is through established or newly emerging finance market providers.

“We are therefore delighted to have been selected to work with them to help fuel growth in the economy through responsible lending to SMEs, at a time when the traditional high street banks are constrained.

“Their programme very much mirrors our own, which is to bring benefits to smaller businesses that are new starts, high growth, or simply viable but underfunded.”