Many of the funding schemes that were introduced by the government during the COVID pandemic are now coming to an end. As such, Reach Commercial Finance, a division of the Leonard Curtis Business Solutions Group, has reported an increase in demand from businesses needing help to source funding facilities to enable them to rebuild turnover lost during the pandemic.
Leonard Curtis Business Solutions Group, in a strategic move to boost its south coast presence acquired Portland Business Recovery, the leading south coast business recovery firm last November.
Carl Faulds, Managing Director of Whiteley based Portland, now trading as Portland Leonard Curtis commented: “One of the key attractions of joining the Group was the additional services that we are now able to offer to businesses struggling with cashflow and Reach is a key part of that offering. We are seeing many potentially viable businesses simply unable to trade as they can’t access new funding. The team at Reach have extensive contacts with a wide range of lenders and are able to use their knowledge to help clients access funding that might not be otherwise be available. This could be a real lifeline for many businesses.”
Gary Cain, Director at Reach said: “The government schemes enabled the banks to support businesses during the crises, but now things are returning to normal, businesses need further support to replenish their working capital, build stocks and generate income. The mainstream banks are already exposed under the government schemes and seem reluctant to provide additional facilities to businesses that may have existing borrowings. It’s a catch 22 – to be able to get back to trading to be able to repay the government-backed loans, they need funding to rebuild their businesses.”
Reach Commercial Finance have managed to arrange over £200 million of funding for mainly small businesses, typically with facilities of between £50,000 and £1 million and they specialise in supporting businesses that don’t necessarily fulfil the mainstream banks’ lending criteria.
Carl Faulds commented further: “Lack of access to funding is one of the reasons the number of companies entering insolvency proceedings has increased so significantly over the last quarter and it is likely that Reach could have helped some of those businesses survive if they had been engaged to help.”