{"id":48748,"date":"2026-11-05T07:46:00","date_gmt":"2026-11-05T07:46:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.thebusinessdesk.com\/south-west\/?p=48748"},"modified":"2026-11-05T07:46:46","modified_gmt":"2026-11-05T07:46:46","slug":"time-finance-fy26-ultimate-finance","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.thebusinessdesk.com\/south-west\/news\/48748-time-finance-fy26-ultimate-finance","title":{"rendered":"Time Finance heads for the exit on a high"},"content":{"rendered":"<p dir=\"ltr\">Time Finance is heading towards the end of its life as a listed company on a high while it waits for the final approvals on a takeover by rival lender Ultimate Finance.<\/p>\n<p dir=\"ltr\">Pre-tax profit was up 6% to \u00a38.4m and it finished the year to May with a record lending book, it has revealed.<\/p>\n<p dir=\"ltr\">The first year of the lender\u2019s three-year \u201cContinuing the Journey\u201d strategy saw revenues increase by 4% to \u00a338.5m, although the group&#8217;s journey is about to set off in a different direction.<\/p>\n<p dir=\"ltr\"><a href=\"https:\/\/www.thebusinessdesk.com\/south-west\/news\/45204-time-finance-agrees-55m-takeover-by-ultimate-finance-owner\">In August Time Finance accepted a \u00a355m cash takeover from Bentley Park (UK), the parent of Ultimate Finance,<\/a> and shareholders formally approved it on October 1.<\/p>\n<p dir=\"ltr\">Ultimate Finance is a Bristol-based asset-based lender formed in 2002 and is part of the private investment firm, the Tavistock Group. Bentley Park has said buying Time Finance would materially accelerate loan book growth and profitability, creating a group with a net loan book of almost \u00a3650m.<\/p>\n<p dir=\"ltr\">For Time Finance, founded in 2000 and floated in 2006 as 1pm plc, the deal will mark a return to private ownership. Bentley Park plans to delist the company once the deal completes and to stop offering new soft asset finance products that it regards as non-core, although that touches only a small part of the business given that more than 93% of new business last year was in secured \u201chard\u201d asset and invoice finance. Completion is expected by the end of the year and is still waiting on Financial Conduct Authority approval.<\/p>\n<p dir=\"ltr\">Chief executive Ed Rimmer said the tough conditions facing small businesses had \u201cprovided many challenges for SMEs but also good opportunities for independent lenders such as Time Finance, with the mainstream banks continuing to move away from lending to the SME community.<\/p>\n<p dir=\"ltr\">\u201cOur multi-product offering provides us with a real advantage over many of our competitors and the flexibility that we provide is much valued by entrepreneurial business owners whose plans often do not go quite as expected,\u201d he said. \u201cWith a clear focus on providing exceptional levels of service to our clients, customers and introducers, we have been able to firmly position the business as a leading player in the \u2018Tier 2\u2019, non-bank market.\u201d<\/p>\n<p dir=\"ltr\">Time Finance\u2019s invoice finance division increased its live clients by 16% and funds in use was up 21% to \u00a383.2m, helping lift the division\u2019s profit by 5% to \u00a36.7m.<\/p>\n<p dir=\"ltr\">Asset finance had a harder time as transport-heavy sectors struggled with the fuel price rises that followed the outbreak of war in the Middle East, leaving a run of insolvencies and some difficult recoveries that are still being worked through. Time Finance said it has tightened its credit policy in the worst-hit sectors, and the division&#8217;s profit was was down 6% to \u00a33.6m.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>AIM-listed lender grows pre-tax profit as it awaits final approvals for its takeover by Ultimate Finance<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":18,"featured_media":26207,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[120781],"coauthors":[81],"class_list":["post-48748","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-markets","tag-featured-story"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v23.9 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>Time Finance heads for the exit on a high - South West<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.thebusinessdesk.com\/south-west\/news\/48748-time-finance-fy26-ultimate-finance\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_GB\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Time Finance heads for the exit on a high - 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