Trio of funding specialists joins the BTG Advisory team

By Bridging Loan Directory 25th March 2019

BTG Advisory, a division of Begbies Traynor Group plc, has appointed experienced funding experts David Smithies, Stephen Couldwell and Andy Chaffer to its corporate solutions team.

David, Stephen and Andy will work with banks and professionals to help businesses across the North to access unsecured lending, in partnership with European credit specialist Caple. The move strengthens BTG Advisory’s offering of tailored funding solutions.

David has over 35 years’ corporate and commercial banking experience as a banking relationship director with NatWest, working with a portfolio of businesses across a range of industries.

Stephen also has extensive relationship and bank lending experience having worked for RBS for more than 30 years. He was latterly involved in providing a customer perspective to regulatory change across the industry.

Andy also has a strong track record in the financial sector having held a number of roles including as a business development manager for funders and as an investment manager. He also spent more than five years as an entrepreneur coach for MBA students at Leeds University Business School.

The trio will be working with banks, businesses and other intermediaries to facilitate access to long term, fully unsecured loans of £0.5m – £5.0m and terms of five to eight years. Access to the loans is enabled by BTG Advisory’s membership of Caple’s Partner Network. The team will undertake due diligence, source and run deals, and complete credit applications on behalf of the business.

“It’s fantastic to have three such experienced funding specialists joining the team. They will help us work with banks and professional advisers to identify well-established, profitable businesses which have a gap in their finances and could benefit from the unsecured loans enabled by Caple,” comments Karl Hodson, director – of the corporate solutions within BTG Advisory.

“Caple’s offer is unique in that it is genuinely unsecured and offers long-term loans at fairly priced rates for significant sums. Our aim is to work alongside banks to find successful businesses which the banks are already supporting, but which need additional funding whether for business expansion, working capital, investment in plant and machinery or even for an acquisition. As independent advisers, we can help verify that the business meets the loan’s criteria. We will then put together a financial model behalf of the client.”

Dominic Buch, co-founder and managing partner of Caple, said: “Options for genuinely unsecured debt are limited in the UK. Whilst banks can fund an amount that reflects the tangible assets in a business, they can’t help if a business has no further assets. In an asset-light economy such as the UK, this creates a barrier to growth. It is encouraging to see BTG Advisory strengthen its tailored funding offer with these new hires and better support their clients to access the unsecured loans we facilitate.”

The offering has already been well received with BTG Advisory helping internal building protection products manufacturer Intastop Ltd in Doncaster to access a £0.7m, eight year unsecured loan from Caple to fund its Management Buy-Out.

Karl concludes: “Bringing on board David, Stephen and Andy will enable us to complement bank finance by addressing a gap in the funding landscape and helping profitable businesses s to access the funding they need in order to continue to grow.”