Bluebird secures funding to boost business

VEHICLE designer and manufacturer, Bluebird Vehicles, has secured major funding to take the business forward. 

Centric Commercial Finance has backed North Yorkshire-based Bluebird Vehicles with a £1,000,000 working capital facility, providing the business with substantial funding to boost new product development and growth.

There will also be an injection of £600,000 from Finance Yorkshire and £100,000 from Business Enterprise alongside the working capital funding from Centric.

The Centric facility consists of an £850,000 Revolving Invoice Discounting line and £150,000 Cash Flow Loan. The management team was introduced to Centric by a private equity fund.
 
Founded in November 2003, Bluebird Vehicles is one of the UK’s leading designer and manufacturer of coach built, low floor accessible minibuses, midi buses, van conversions and specialised vehicles. Sales are to local authorities, passenger transport executives and service bus operators.
 
A reduction in Local Authority capital expenditure on non-core routes has meant that Bluebird is embarking on new innovations to boost its future growth plans.Bluebird is developing a 33-seater low floor bus to be launched in May/June 2014 that will meet Euro6 emissions criteria. The firm says this will put it in a very strong position to be the market leader in this particular niche.
 
Tim Hawkins, commercial director at Centric Commercial Finance, said: “We are delighted to support a business that makes a positive difference to the quality of peoples’ lives by providing essential and innovative transport options.  We were also very pleased to work alongside Finance Yorkshire and Business Enterprise on this transaction.”