£15m capital injection for SME business lender
South Yorkshire’s Finance for Enterprise has received a £15m injection, enabling it to support more SMEs in the region.
The funding has been secured through match lending provided by social investment institution Big Society Capital and European sustainable bank Triodos. Each is providing £7.5m for business lending through Finance for Enterprise.
This will allow FFE to offer business loans to businesses across South and East Yorkshire, Lincolnshire, Derbyshire and Nottinghamshire in the next three years.
The lender has already pledged more than £3m in new business loans, with which businesses across the region have invested in new equipment, employing new staff and improving cashflow.
Alon with Social Investment Scotland, Big Society Capital created a £30m fund aimed at helping the work of community-led business loan providers to support the growth of local economies throughout the UK.
Not-for-profit FFE will use these resources to give more businesses access to loans, having been rejected by high street lenders. They will run alongside other lending options such as the Northern Powerhouse Investment Fund and Start Up Loans programme.
Managing director Arthur Foreman said: “SME businesses are the backbone of Britain’s economy, yet many are unable to secure the vital funds needed to realise their growth ambitions. The funding we have secured will help us to make more money available to viable businesses, enabling barriers to growth to be overcome.
“The additional capital will help us to continue to support more SMEs within Yorkshire and the Humber and the North Midlands; it’s a fantastic honour for Finance For Enterprise to become the first alternative lending provider in the UK to be successful in securing access to the funding available from both Big Society Capital and Triodos Bank UK.”
Matt Boggan, relationship manager at Triodos Bank UK, added: “Making money work for positive social, environmental and cultural change is central to the bank’s ethos. Key to this is providing finance to help start-ups and growing businesses fulfil their potential, as these enterprises really have the ability to transform a community.”
In the past five years, Finance for Enterprise has provided £37m of loans, £27m of which went to 600 established businesses and the remaining £10m helped fund new startup businesses.
In the same period, the organisation said it helped create 1,400 new jobs and safeguarded a further 1,800, resulting in a net economic contribution to the region of more than £140 million.
