Member Article

Finance expert promoted to partner as BTG Advisory strengthens team

Karl Hodson, who joined BTG Advisory, a division of Begbies Traynor Group, three years ago as a director, has been promoted to partner as the quoted group continues to build its team of funding specialists.

Karl, who is a former banker and investment manager, joined BTG Advisory in 2016, working from the firm’s offices in Yorkshire, the Humber and the North East, to set up its offering of tailored funding solutions and receivables management services. Since then, he has grown the Corporate Solution division to a seven-strong team and helped it to achieve over 50% income growth in the last financial year (ending April 2019).

The team assists businesses needing to raise finance, working with banks and accountants across the North as well as partnering with Caple Business Loans to provide unsecured loans of £500k to £5m. In addition, the team provides sales ledger support, helping to collect outstanding business debts.

Julian Pitts, regional managing partner for Yorkshire, comments: “With his extensive knowledge of commercial funding, Karl has proved to be the ideal person to lead our specialist services, working with professional advisers to guide SMEs through the raft of lending options in what has been a very challenging and turbulent time.

“Karl has built an extremely experienced and capable team which has supported numerous businesses with their refinancing needs, as well as working with them to collect outstanding debts. This promotion is well-deserved recognition of his achievements and positions the team for further growth.”

Karl adds: “As an independent funding specialist, we see our role as working with advisers and businesses to help find solutions to their finance needs. Whether seeking funding for growth, or just for working capital purposes, finding the right funding is still difficult, but we have proved able to support profitable businesses by providing unsecured loans to fill a gap in their finances. We also offer a range of services to aid the collection of outstanding business debts and have achieved numerous successful collect outs ensuring the secured lender has been repaid in full.

“Bringing together this expertise has been well-received by businesses across the UK, and I look forward to building on this as we continue to strengthen our offering.”

The firm recently launched Sheffield Chamber Finance, a new product which gives advice to Sheffield Chamber of Commerce members.

In his spare time, Karl has helped to raise over £10,000 during the last 12 months for local charities such as Cavendish Cancer Care, Laura Crane Youth Cancer Trust and the Include Foundation by running networking events in Sheffield and Leeds in support of the charities.

Karl’s experience before joining BTG Advisory, includes working as a commercial manager for HSBC, time at the British Business Bank, and as investment manager for Enterprise Ventures, primarily working on the Finance Yorkshire fund.

This was posted in Bdaily's Members' News section by Emma Kilmurray .