Nottingham based Midlands Asset Finance which arranges various types of funding for business, has seen demand for its services increase, with the husband and wife team that run it – Dave and Sue Chapman – attributing this growth to more companies looking to expand as the rate of economic recovery picks up and others looking to change their funding arrangements.
Established over three years ago by Sue Chapman, former Senior Director of Lombard Asset Finance in the East Midlands, she was joined by husband Dave in 2011. Dave previously held senior positions in this region with RBS Corporate where he headed up the property team for East and West Midlands before moving to Bank of Ireland Real Estate.
The company provides tailored funding packages to businesses, in particular arranging asset finance, lease transactions and property funding as well as assisting with rebanking and invoice finance. It operates across the Midlands in all industry sectors but with particular specialisms in healthcare, construction, waste management and recycling, manufacturing, engineering, bus and coach and road haulage.
Over the last three years Midlands Asset Finance has achieved steady growth and last year secured £65m of lending for clients but this growth has accelerated more recently as demand for its services has increased and the company has started with to work with more key funders in the market place. As a result they have recruited 7 additional members of staff in the last six months, all highly experienced in their respective fields, taking the team to 10. These include Simon Boddy, who joined three months ago from Lloyds Bank where he specialised in invoice discounting and asset based lending, and Ann Soar, who started at the beginning of the year, having moved from the transport and engineering division of Close Brothers Asset Finance.
Sue attributes the success of the business to the considerable expertise that the team has in banking, property and asset finance and the strong relationships that they have forged with a large number of banks and asset providers both in the UK and Europe.
“We enjoy very strong relationships with our Banking Business Partners which enables us to have an in depth understanding of their individual credit appetite and, as we place substantial volumes of business, we can negotiate and secure highly competitive deals for our clients,” said Sue. “We also focus on understanding our clients’ businesses so that we can deliver the most appropriate funding solution for their particular requirements. We don’t have a Call Centre ethos. Our objective is to deliver a very personal, professional and an unparalleled service to our clients.”
Talking about the future Sue said: “We are seeing the work in progress build and we fully expect to significantly grow the lending volumes in 2014.”
