Member Article

ThinCats delivers £1m ‘agile finance facility’ to fund MBO and substantial contract win for Firtitudo Ltd

Firtitudo Ltd has secured a £1m funding facility from alternative finance provider, ThinCats.

The transaction enabled the managing director of Firtitudo Ltd and database for business limited (dbfb) to acquire the remaining 45 per cent of secure communications specialist dbfb and the founder to exit. Mid-way through the transaction process, the business was faced with an immediate requirement for growth capital to fund a substantial new order. ThinCats stepped up to deliver, structuring a facility to include bullet repayments and fixing the repayment date to suit the business’s monthly cash flows.

The acquired company, database for business limited, provides organisations with secure connectivity and communications, incorporating landlines, cloud services and mobile. The growing business has offices in Northampton and Milton Keynes and a very strong regional presence in the Midlands.

The company has earned an enviable reputation for being close to the markets it serves and managing director, Simon Pickering, was seeking the same qualities from his funding provider:

“What I really like about ThinCats is that they don’t hide away in an ivory tower. They are not faceless financiers; neither do they hide behind financial ratios and metrics. They visited us to gain a good understanding of our business needs and pressures. Having the ability to meet the team that will be making the decisions on your application is invaluable and very refreshing - you certainly wouldn’t get that elsewhere”, Simon Pickering continued.

“ThinCats demonstrated extreme flexibility throughout the transaction. Half way through the management buy-out, a superb opportunity arose for us to take on a very large new contract. As well as funding the share purchase, ThinCats ensured that we had increased transitional funding for growth, enabling us to take on the order swiftly and smoothly. There was total transparency on both sides and that sense of openness and trust made this an enjoyable deal to work on together.”

“Our strategy is based on the old-fashioned values of service and relationships, as well as having an excellent understanding of the requirements of our local market. Our experience of ThinCats shows them to be an agile, modern business with traditional values, exactly what we were looking for from our lending partner.”

Matthew Lawrence, Loan Origination Manager, ThinCats said: “Simon and his team have a very clear roadmap for the business and we are delighted to be playing our part in supporting them to achieve their ambitions in creating a world-class technology platform for business growth.”

“In this fast-moving, digitally-driven environment, businesses seeking to scale need lenders that possess the experience and short lines of communication to be able to pivot quickly. Our role is to create certainty of deal execution, even when events are changing dynamically around us.”

This was posted in Bdaily's Members' News section by Laura Jones .