New entrant provides more than £8 million in lending for Scottish businesses

A specialist lender has provided more than £8 million of funding to small and medium-sized enterprises a year after launching in Scotland, amid “unprecedented” demand.

Brian Machray, business development director for Scotland, and Nick Smith, group managing director of Reward Finance Group.

Reward Finance Group said it had supported businesses operating across a diverse range of sectors and was now looking to further build on its success by expanding its team internally and developing its commercial finance broker network in the year ahead. The asset-backed lending specialist’s Scottish business is led by Brian Machray, who is described as “experienced and well-connected in the Scottish financial market”. He joined the firm 12 months ago having previously worked in the UK and Australia, delivering acquisition, property and infrastructure finance.

Machray said: “The first 12 months of establishing any business in a new market can be extremely challenging, so to go on such a rapid growth trajectory has been a superb achievement.”

Among the SMEs in Scotland to benefit from Reward’s support in the last 12 months is Fife-based Moda Ceramics, a porcelain and ceramic tile supplier, which was looking to expand its business with new headquarters and a showroom. It was provided with £150,000 in working capital to assist with receivables and large orders imported from Europe. Another company to tap the firm for funding support is tyre recycling business UK Rubber. The Motherwell-based firm agreed a £350,000 working capital facility to help improve operational efficiencies and invest in vital machinery.

Nick Smith, group managing director for Reward, said: “It’s fair to say that our first 12 months of trading in Scotland has completely exceeded our expectations - £8.3m is a significant sum to inject into the Scottish economy in just 12 months and we’re now looking to the future, growing the team here further and providing more working capital to help SMEs seize new opportunities, accelerate their business growth or simply get through a brief period of difficulty.”

The firm provides SMEs with business finance loans and asset-based funding products of up to £5m.

Meanwhile, British Business Investments has committed £30m to the Panoramic SME III fund as part of a final close of £100m. It will allow Panoramic, which is based in Glasgow, to fund growth opportunities for smaller businesses across the UK.