Thincats in £300m SME boost

Alternative finance provider Thincats today unveiled a new programme to help pump up to £300 million into UK small businesses.

The firm, which describes itself as “a leading fintech lender” to small and medium-sized enterprises (SMES), has struck a deal with global asset manager Insight Investment to provide the commercial loans.

Thincats said that on top of £300m from existing investors, it now has a potential £600m to fund UK SMES across the “full risk spectrum in all regions and sectors” from £100,000 to £10m.

It added that its lending focus remained on “meeting borrowers’ ambitions” through funding of up to five years to companies with asset backing or reliable cashflows for working capital, acquisition, refinance or growth.

Damon Walford, chief development officer at Thincats, said: “We have responded to a market need to provide lending at a cost of capital that reflects the lower risk associated with established strong businesses and thereby offer a real alternative to bank funding.

“By combining big data and technology, with dynamic credit and client servicing skills, we are simplifying traditional lending models. Thincats enables SMES to scale-up fast and achieve their growth ambitions with strong institutional funding support.”

Shaheer Guirguis, head of secured finance at Insight Investment, which has £600 billion of assets under management,added:“ourpartnership with Thincats represents our commitment to source the most compelling investment opportunities in specialist lending markets such as SME loans.

“In an era in which banks are retrenching from certain lending markets due to regulatory considerations this is a concrete example of how institutional investors such as pension funds and insurance companies can step in to support SMES.”