British Business Investments announces a new £20m Tier 2 facility for DF Capital.
This investment will help DF Capital provide “an additional £300m+ of new lending per annum, to existing and new UK SME vendors and dealerships.”
The investment has been “made through British Business Investments, a wholly-owned commercial subsidiary of the British Business Bank, that aims to increase the supply and diversity of finance for smaller businesses across the UK by boosting the lending capacity of a range of finance providers.”
Since it was established in 2014, British Business Investments has “committed more than £3.3 billion to providers of finance to UK smaller businesses.”
DF Capital is a specialist bank “providing inventory finance to dealer and manufacturing businesses across the UK.”
Their lending, across “a range of sectors and asset types, supports the working capital needs of SMEs by funding the purchase of stock prior to it being sold to end users.”
DF Capital works either directly “with dealers or through manufacturer programmes to support product distribution.” Last year DF Capital provided “over £1 billion of finance to around 1,000 dealers and almost 100 manufacturers.”
The British Business Bank also “supports DF Capital with a £250m guarantee through its ENABLE Guarantee programme, potentially increasing to £350m in the future.”
Judith Hartley, CEO, British Business Investments, said:
“At British Business Investments, our mission is to increase the overall supply and diversity of finance for smaller businesses across the UK. This £20m Tier 2 facility to DF Capital supports that mission and will help more smaller businesses across the UK to access the capital they need to grow.’’
Carl D’Ammassa, CEO, DF Capital, said:
“This £20m commitment by British Business Investments, in combination with the potential future increase of the British Business Bank ENABLE Guarantee from the current limit of £250m to £350m, allows us to grow our lending balances to in excess of £800m, significantly expanding our ability to support existing and new customers both through its inventory finance offering and its new product pipeline.”
As noted in the update, British Business Investments Limited is “a wholly owned commercial subsidiary of British Business Bank plc, the UK government’s economic development bank.”
British Business Investments aims “to earn a commercial return by investing – through finance providers – in smaller businesses and small mid-caps, pursuing investments on a fully commercial basis without receiving any economic advantage from the government.”
The Bank and its subsidiary entities are “not banking institutions and do not operate as such. They are not authorized or regulated by the Prudential Regulation Authority (PRA) or the Financial Conduct Authority (FCA).”
As mentioned in the announcement, DF Capital is “a trading name of DF Capital Bank Limited, a subsidiary of Distribution Finance Capital Holdings plc.”
With its headquarters in Manchester, the bank now “employs over 100 people.”
It has provided “over £2bn of funding across a variety of leisure and commercial sectors, including motorhome & caravan; lodges & holiday homes; specialist/prestige cars, motorcycles/all-terrain vehicles; marine; agriculture; industrial and transport.”
