Barclays media team lends £19m in H1

BARCLAYS’ Manchester-based technology, media and telecoms (TMT) team agreed funding deals worth £19m in the first half, up 30% on last year.

This included a £5m increase in working capital for Northwich-based online retailer The Hut and a £4m working capital facility for County Durham-based Filtronic, which provides equipment for the telecommunications industry.

There was also a further £10m for Alderley Edge-based telecoms group Chess in May.

The new three-year facility, under the government’s Funding for Lending Scheme, took its total facility to £24.5m in total comprising a mix of term loan, revolving credit facility and overdraft.

Barclays has also won new business from specialist software business Eque2 and business intelligence firm Accuma, which are both based in Manchester and have moved over from HSBC.

Richard Faulkner, TMT relationship director, said: “We’ve seen three-and-a-half years of growth but I think we’re now seeing the best conditions that we’ve had in that period. There’s more private equity interest around and corporates are looking to make better use of their balance sheets.”

He added: “The sector continues to out-perform the wider market and indeed recent Barclays research has shown that online businesses are growing 57 times faster than the UK economy.”