Assetz Capital partners with Aros Kapital to fund CBILS lending

By Bridging Loan Directory 19th August 2020

Assetz Capital has signed a funding deal with Aros Kapital, a fast-growing Nordic financing provider focused on the SME segment, to contribute to its lending under the Coronavirus Business Interruption Loan Scheme (CBILS).

With offices in Gothenburg (HQ), Stockholm, Orebro and London, Aros Kapital provides loans, invoice financing and leasing for small and medium-sized companies.

It is also cooperating with the European Investment Fund (EIF) to deliver loans to SMEs in Sweden.

Aros Kapital is partnering with Assetz as part of its long-term plans to enter the UK SME funding market and support UK businesses with a range of flexible financing solutions to enable their growth and prosperity.

Under the partnership, Aros Kapital will initially fund Assetz Capital’s property-secured term loans to SMEs requiring financial support due to the coronavirus pandemic.

The peer-to-peer marketplace lender was approved for accreditation as a CBILS lender in May, and is delivering commercial mortgages and property development loans to eligible SMEs and housebuilders under the scheme.

It is expected that Aros will continue funding non-CBILS loans as the scheme closes or evolves later in the year.

Assetz Capital has lent over £1 billion since its inception in 2013 and funded around 1 in every 100 new homes for the last two years.

It is estimated that its current borrowers support up to 100,000 jobs across the UK, and since inception it has funded over 5,000 new homes.

Stuart Law, pictured, CEO at Assetz Capital, said:

“Unlike banks, who can fund their CBILS and BBLS loans cheaply through the Bank of England, many alternative finance providers have not been able to begin lending due to the lack of existing institutional funding relationships and also lack of track record or scale.

These are not problems that we have encountered to the same degree, and whilst our cost of capital is a lot higher than a bank, we have an important place in the SME lending market for SMEs not complying with simple high street banking requirements.

Our track record and £1bn scale of lending to date have attracted a range of institutional funders to fund alongside retail investors.

We are delighted to welcome Aros Kapital onboard to help support our range of property secured lending under the CBILS scheme.

Longer-term, Aros will significantly strengthen our marketplace of retail investors, SME investors, banks, specialist credit funds, UK Government and other institutions and will directly support our provision of finance to the UK’s SMEs and housebuilders that would be unable to access a loan otherwise.

We look forward to working with Aros Kapital through this period of the coronavirus pandemic and beyond.”

Gustav Rocklinger, CEO at Aros Kapital Limited, said:

“We are delighted to be partnering with Assetz whose innovative platform ensures their unique and strong position in the UK SME funding market.

Following our strategic decision to enter the UK market, we believe that Assetz will be an ideal long-term partner, sharing our ethos and business vision to support UK SMEs with flexible financing solutions not obtainable elsewhere, while producing attractive risk-adjusted returns.”