Making a difference to UK Business

As UK businesses continue to battle the challenging conditions in their pursuit of growth, we ask Martin Bennison, Sales and Marketing Director how Pulse Cashflows’ Strategic Finance proposition could make the difference.

Q: Martin, what is Strategic Finance?

MB: Pulse Cashflows Strategic Finance proposition enables UK businesses to access bespoke funding facilities upwards of £5m. The client will be seeking growth capital and dependent on their requirementswe will structure a deal that works for their business. It will always include a receivables facility where we are providing capital against the book debt. In addition to this, it will most likely include some form of Trade Finance facility – either via a purchase order or a revolving stock facility. The aim is to provide scalable finance for businesses with ambitious growth plans. 

Q Why have you developed Strategic Finance?

MB: We’re fortunate to have unwavering support from our parent company – Cubitt Trade Holdings and together we are committed and have ambitious plans to support more UK Businesses than ever before. They have invested extensive resources into our businessand their experience and expertise coupled with our own enables us to connect with and support UK businesses through the provision of larger and more complex funding deals.

Q: What’s a typical Strategic Finance client?

MB: A UK business turning over more than £15m with a strong customer base. They will be well run businesses who have a good quality product, but capital constraints are holding them back. With access to a scalable funding solution, they will have the confidence to drive their strategy forward.

Q: What would be a typical client scenario?

MB: An established business with 3 years plus of trading history. They will most likely have a funding solution in place but will be finding themselves capital constrained as it isn’t tailored to their specific situation. They may well have faced some challenges for example a business that experienced a substantial bad debt and needed to write it off. When something goes wrong for a larger business it can be significant, but it is understanding the reason behind why it has happened and what the business plans to do to recover to grow shareholder value thats important.

They may be generating turnover from and holding stock in multiple overseas locations and will be lookingfor support to fund their stock and sales. We review the whole business and restructure their current funding into an ABL proposition removing the incumbent, providing a bigger multi-faceted facility which provides an increase in the amount of capital available and provides the business with more certainty moving forward.

Q: How do Pulse manage their risk? 

MB: It is essential that we have certain security measures in place. We have an experienced and dedicated team in place, with a wealth of expertise led by Siouxsie Ashmore our Head of Strategic Finance. They work to a robust set of processes which provides us with the comfort we need to do the deal. Funding overseas stock can always be risky but having full dominion and control means we are happy to fund it. Our aim isto provide the growth capital our clients need to drive their business forward.

Q: Do you work with clients’ advisors?

MB: Yes, we work with a range of influencers. Strategic Finance is a complex and relationship driven proposition. It’s important that advisors duly consider not only the type of solution required but the funder who will deliver it. We work with several Corporate Advisory and Finance teams when constructing these deals for our clients and they appreciate our commercial and pragmatic approach to structuring the right type of deal as well as our experience and expertise. It also requires a lot of trust on all sides. They require certainty of funding and in return we trust our client to execute their vision and ultimately grow the value of their business.

Q: What next?

MB: Our vision is to do more, bigger deals which complement our invoice finance portfolio ensuring that we have a good spread of clients that we support