{"id":435,"date":"2025-02-13T09:18:35","date_gmt":"2025-02-13T10:18:35","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/timsvideostore.com\/?p=435"},"modified":"2025-02-15T12:06:32","modified_gmt":"2025-02-15T12:06:32","slug":"shawbrook-the-sme-lender-championing-growth","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/timsvideostore.com\/index.php\/2025\/02\/13\/shawbrook-the-sme-lender-championing-growth\/","title":{"rendered":"Shawbrook: The SME Lender Championing Growth"},"content":{"rendered":"
<\/div>\n

Shawbrook\u2019s head of corporate leverage, Chris Walton explains how the bank\u2019s personalised and flexible approach to finance helps SMEs reach their strategic objectives.<\/strong><\/p>\n

Growth is a top-level goal in any ambitious SME. At Shawbrook<\/a>, a specialist consumer and business savings and lending bank, facilitating SME growth by providing a personal, practical and creative approach to lending is what they are all about, explains Shawbrook\u2019s head of corporate leverage, Chris Walton.<\/p>\n

Shawbrook helps SME clients achieve their growth objectives by providing the finance they need to embark on ambitious projects or business milestones. This includes helping them to buy other businesses, known as acquisitions: \u201cThey [acquisitions] enable growth-minded businesses to accelerate, leapfrogging into a new marketplace, geography or product area. It\u2019s an opportunity for them to achieve greater scale and make their business more resilient. All sorts of SMEs approach Shawbrook for support; from \u201cmature family-owned businesses operating for decades\u201d to younger firms set up with acquisitions in mind. Shawbrook is sector agnostic, and supports firms from a range of backgrounds. Ideal candidates for acquisition finance include SMEs with \u201ctypically strong revenue streams, good margins, and high cash conversion.\u201d It largely works with clients with earnings \u201cnorth of \u00a31m\u201d with a \u201ctypical lending of between \u00a33-20m.\u201d<\/p>\n

Chris has advice for SMEs thinking about accessing this form of finance, \u201cdo your prep work\u201d. This includes taking the time to \u201cthink carefully about what sort of businesses they want to buy,\u201d and whether it \u201ccomplements their existing business.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"
Chris Walton, Shawbrook\u2019s head of corporate leverage<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

There is a growing trend of SMEs seeking acquisition finance despite recent economic hurdles. Chris believes some of the challenges arising from government policies, Brexit and Covid-19, have created opportunities for ambitious SMEs, who are able to buy out busi<\/p>\n

nesses at attractive prices. \u201cSensible acquisitions enable them to thrive,\u201d he explains.<\/p>\n

While the National Insurance hike is a talking point among his clientele, Chris confirms it hasn\u2019t diminished their appetite. However, they are \u201clooking carefully at financial forecasting\u201d and the hike has \u201cimpacted the price paid for targets with earnings reduced from tax changes.\u201d<\/p>\n

Shawbrook\u2019s market differentiator in the acquisition finance space is its specialist staff and individual approach to supporting clients through their lending journey. This begins via early-stage meetings with management teams where Shawbrook works on \u201cunderstanding the business\u201d including the \u201ccritical components of how they interact with their own clients.\u201d<\/p>\n

Discussions on the client\u2019s market and business strategy, and even site visits for tangible businesses, are part of the service and all help Shawbrook understand their unique story to structure the ideal financing package for the client, \u201cthere\u2019s no one size fits all.\u201d
\nWith loans typically spanning between three to five years in duration, it\u2019s a \u201clong-term relationship.\u201d Clients are contacted and supported regularly, especially if there\u2019s a big event such as a major acquisition or refinancing needs. \u201cThere\u2019s capacity as the business grows to provide follow-on financing\u201d, Chris comments.<\/p>\n

Unlike traditional lenders, Shawbrook clients deal with a smaller, dedicated team of experts, enabling close relationships and an environment of trust to take hold. With Shawbrook, clients regularly speak to \u201ctwo to three key contacts, including senior managers.\u201d Shawbrook also provides \u201cconsistent, high-quality service\u201d with \u201cno long drawn-out processes\u201d or \u201cchopping and changing the deal\u201d which can happen with traditional lenders. The personal approach is delivered through dedicated teams that manage a smaller number of clients to ensure a consistent level of service, and enable decisions to be made faster due to shorter lines of communication. \u201cOur client-facing colleagues speak directly with key decision makers to get insight on how they may structure a deal,\u201d he says, \u201cwhich is simply not possible with high street lenders who have much larger portfolios and more complex organisations to navigate\u201d.<\/p>\n

Crucial to this personal service is the strong interpersonal skills among the Shawbrook team: \u201cA lot of our clients are first-time borrowers, and don\u2019t have as much experience of complex financial products, so we take them on that journey and clearly explain the facilities and processes needed to support with their requirements.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019re a specialist lending bank, my team\u2019s sole focus is to structure finance to support ambitious business owners in achieving their goals\u201d Chris concludes. Well, if you\u2019re a growth-minded SME with strong foundations in need of financing for the next exciting stage of your journey, work with the experts!<\/p>\n

The post Shawbrook: The SME Lender Championing Growth<\/a> appeared first on Real Business<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Shawbrook\u2019s head of corporate leverage, Chris Walton explains how the bank\u2019s personalised and flexible approach to finance helps SMEs reach their strategic objectives. Growth is a top-level goal in any ambitious SME. At Shawbrook, a specialist consumer and business savings and lending bank, facilitating SME growth by providing a personal, practical and creative approach to […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":437,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[11],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/timsvideostore.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/435"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/timsvideostore.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/timsvideostore.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/timsvideostore.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/timsvideostore.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=435"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/timsvideostore.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/435\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":438,"href":"https:\/\/timsvideostore.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/435\/revisions\/438"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/timsvideostore.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/437"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/timsvideostore.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=435"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/timsvideostore.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=435"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/timsvideostore.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=435"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}