Member Article

The joy of six million to boost businesses

A Yorkshire investment company is proving a business success story itself after securing a further £6m funding to support regional SMEs.

Hundreds of businesses across North and West Yorkshire will have greater access to finance after the Business Enterprise Fund (BEF) received £6m investment from the Regional Growth Fund to expand its work in offering loans to small and medium sized businesses (SMEs) unable to secure bank finance.

BEF, a Bradford and Leeds based social enterprise, is committed to helping the economic development of West and North Yorkshire businesses and has lent millions of pounds across the region since its formation eight years ago, providing a crucial lifeline to a host of different business.

The £6m funding boost completes a strong start to 2013 for BEF, which recently opened a second office in Leeds, expanded its team by 35 per cent to 15 staff and opened its £2million “City Hub” incubator office space in Little Germany, Bradford.

The team was also part of a small consortium of lenders that came fourth in the UK for delivering new Start Up Loans for Young People.

BEF Director Stephen Waud, said the latest funding announcement for BEF, which has seen 75 per cent growth in the last 12 months and has 100 per cent growth planned for 2014, proves businesses can flourish across the region.

“This is the first stage in our plans to treble the size of our business over the next three years,” he explained.

“BEF has been instrumental in submitting a further bid to the Business Bank for a national £120 million wholesale fund as demand for our assistance – and support from other similar organisations – continues to soar, despite bank SME lending remaining low.”

He added: “While the need for finance continues to grow, the gap between lending and demand remains huge with a recent survey showing that in the Yorkshire and Humber region, this is as much as £120m a year.

“Our aim is to lend to and support 200 businesses this year and we are determined to grow ourselves to meet the latent demand.”

A quarter of all BEF loans in 2013 have been made to businesses within Leeds and loans to North Yorkshire businesses account for over 30% of all loans made.

This was posted in Bdaily's Members' News section by Mark Lane .