Simply profitable: Asset finance outfit feels the benefit of specialist SME support
A FIVE YEAR-OLD London-based asset manager has seen profit grow for the second year in a row as small to medium businesses look for alternative ways of funding game-changing investments.
Simply now employs 114 people across the UK and has lent more than £700m to small and medium sized enterprises through a combination of hire purchase, finance leasing and asset equity release.
The firm has worked on deals with firms as varied as a hydroblasting outfit, a Scottish taxi firm and a Bedford kitchen worktops provider.
The firm’s growth reflects a shift towards specialist finance and away from larger commercial banks from small businesses.
CEO Mike Randall told City A.M. last night: “To have reached profitability in such a short amount of time is a great achievement and this set of results shows that Simply is delivering precisely what SMEs in the UK need.”
Randall warned that SMEs would be facing the same realities of rising costs as businesses of larger sizes and firms would need bespoke solutions for “uncharted territory.”
Chief Financial Officer Stefan Wolvaardt said the firm was on a “strong growth trajectory” and was working on plans to increase the customer base, which currently stands at just shy of 5,000 across the five years of operation. It opened a Scottish base last year.