Expert Property Group
2 February 2020
Expert Property Group specialises in property improvement, from repairs and maintenance to ground-up construction projects. With a team based in Hertfordshire, the firm has clients including housing associations, insurance companies and other blue chip businesses, helping them keep their properties in good working order for residents.
We helped Expert Property Group find an unsecured peer-to-peer loan for working capital. Expert Property Group had been expanding significantly, carrying out multiple projects for insurance companies including reinstatements of fire and flood affected properties. Profits have been increasing too, and with the business looking stronger than ever on paper, managing director Simon Edwards was looking to the future.
However, increased work volumes from new clients meant building the Expert team and taking on new staff, and the business was spending more of the company’s capital to fund these new projects. Some clients were slow to pay, and others were operating on long payment terms — Simon and the team had even considered turning down clients to ease their cash flow issues.
Their business bank was no help, requiring a huge amount of security for a loan, so Simon spoke to his existing invoice finance provider to see if they could adjust their facility to take some of the pressure off.
The company had developed good relationships with customers. One newly acquired customer had acknowledged their own payment issues, and was aiming to reduce the delays in payments that were sometimes reaching 90 or 120 days to a more manageable 30 days, but they needed time to rectify some of their processes.
Unfortunately, even with good relationships like these in evidence, Expert Property Group’s existing invoice finance provider was unwilling to extend their recourse period to 120 days, leaving Simon to work out how to cover the temporary shortfall and continue serving new contracts.
On a frustrating search for finance, Simon found Funding Options and spoke to a specialist. We were confident the business was strong, with no bad debts and 15 years of trading history, and matched Expert Property Group with a leading peer-to-peer lender. The paperwork was sent over the following day, and Expert Property Group had the money in their account within 5 days.
The loan was based on a combination of the business’s profile and Simon’s personal property portfolio — showing that many alternative lenders take a more flexible view, and appreciate the full story of a business and its directors. Finding the right finance means Simon and Expert Property Group can move forward, and focus on new contracts instead of managing their finances.
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