Lender provides more than £1.6bn worth of funding in 2019
Leeds-based specialist asset-based lender, Ultimate Finance, broke its own annual lending record by providing funds of more than £1.6bn to SMEs last year.
The newly released figures show that Ultimate Finance finished the year with a record high loan book of £265m. Further growth in the size of the company’s client base means Ultimate Finance ended the year supporting more companies than ever.
Highlights include: The average size of Invoice Finance deals more than doubling with facilities of up to £5m; Asset Finance hitting a new annual high, with the loan book exceeding £55m; The Bridging Finance loan book growing close to £40m, an exceptional year-on-year increase of 23.5%.
The funds went to SMEs across the UK. As well as Leeds, Ultimate Finance also has offices in Manchester, Edinburgh, Lutterworth and Bristol.
Josh Levy, CEO at the business, said: “Ultimate Finance has prospered in 2019 against the backdrop of an unsettled year for many UK businesses.
“Uncertainty surrounding Brexit and the general election were contributing factors to business investment falling in five of the last six quarters, however it is encouraging to see business confidence returning.
“In this context, I’m proud to announce another record-breaking year of lending for Ultimate Finance with over 1,000 new businesses supported by our funding solutions.
“Our flexible, solution-driven approach to funding and excellent customer service increasingly make us the funder of choice for businesses wanting to invest and thrive.
“To that end we were pleased to be a founding signatory of the SME Finance Charter to demonstrate our unwavering commitment to facilitating growth for ambitious businesses in all market conditions.
“Our continued growth mirrors a trend of businesses becoming simultaneously more comfortable with alternative finance providers and moving away from traditional banks.
“This trend, along with the investment in developing our introducer relationships, present us with a big opportunity for 2020 to continue supporting more businesses around the UK.”
