Christie Finance secures £20m fund for industry

The company said that the new funding  is likely to be available for small investors and people in the trade buying a reasonable freehold or long leasehold.

Christie offered an initial £20m for these sectors earlier this year, which it said “was massively over-subscribed”. £3.2m of this went to pubs.

It added that traditional lenders are “once again supporting and financing new businesses, taking a new pragmatic approach to lending in some sectors”.

Christie Finance said it noticed that its clients are taking advantage of this as well as the subsidised rate of borrowing offered by the Government’s new national Loan Guarantee Scheme (NLGS).

David Grant, head of UK business mortgages for Christie Finance, said: “The 1% discount on interest rates from the NLGS has provided a real fillip in tough trading conditions. We have also seen clients take advantage of a less-publicised element of the NLGS – a cash-back facility. For example, a £1m loan would qualify for a cash-back lump sum of £50,000 upon drawdown of a loan. This is a great aid to cashflow or to covering the costs of buying or re-financing a business.”

The finance broker also noted that it has seen a restoration of confidence with a significant increase in the number of borrowers going on to complete their deals in the year-to-date, compared with the same period last year.

Grant added: “At this time last year around 30% of borrowers did not proceed to completion, while in 2012 around 90 per cent are moving forward to complete their deals — this is a sign of more realistic lean terms being offered by lenders and improved customer confidence in the potential for new business purchases.”