Lender pledges £7.5m to support small business growth

ART Business Loans Team

ART Business Loans has pledged to double its loan book after confirming a £7.5m loan pool to help fund small business growth.

The year to March 31, 2017 was a tough one for the lender; a point it openly acknowledged at its annual general meeting.

The year, which coincided with the organisation’s 20th anniversary, was dominated by a drive to secure new funding.

This was resolved when it joined forces with Birmingham City Council, the ThinCats peer lending platform and Unity Trust Bank to create a loan fund for firms in Birmingham unable to obtain finance from the high street banks.

The new Birmingham Small Business Loan Fund (BSBLF) is aiming to lend £3m to Birmingham businesses.

Additional support from the Regional Growth Fund means the lender now has access to £7.5m over the next year three years, which it intends to use to help fund the development of companies emerging from the start-up phase.

Typically, these are companies that need additional funding having progressed through the start-up phase to the stage where they are employing new staff in order to facilitate growth.

Nick Venning, new chairman of ART Business Loans, said: “It has been a tough year for us because of the constraints over funding and this has been very frustrating.

“However, we now have the funding secured and are looking to support firms in their growth plans.

“Obviously there is a price to pay in terms of risk and our interest rates reflect this but we have to do that to be a responsible lender.”

It stressed it was an alternative lender as it was not in competition with the banks. Rather it was an additional lender for firms which could not access bank funding.

Steve Walker, ART chief executive, said there was plenty of support for start-up firms but where ART was looking to step in was with firms which were now beyond the start-up stage and were looking for the next phase of their growth.

He told the AGM: “Don’t be fooled that it is just new businesses looking for funding; there are firms out there that have been around for 50, 75 – even 100 years – that are struggling to get the funding they need.”

He said the food sector, both in terms of restaurants and the food products manufacturers, was one ART was actively looking at to help as it already had a lot of knowledge of this sector.

The loans service is also strengthening its partnership arrangements. It currently works with Finance Birmingham and has recently extended its sponsorship of Made in the Midlands following its acquisition in August of the Manufacturing Advisory Service brand.

“We are looking forward to supporting more businesses. We start the next 20 years with high expectations,” added Mr Walker.

ART has lent more than £21m since its launch in June 1997, helping to secure around 7,000 jobs.

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