As appointed Fund Manager for the British Business Bank’s Investment Fund for Scotland (IFS) and South West Investment Fund (SWIF), The FSE Group is helping ambitious SMEs (small and medium enterprises) overcome hurdles to their growth, providing loans from £100,000 to £2million.

As a provider of finance  for business expansion, we’re more interested in your forecasts than your historic trading performance. As long as you can show that your business is growing and has gained commercial traction such as some sales, confirmed orders etc, we don’t mind if it is early stage, resurgent, recently changed ownership, or pivoting in a new direction.

Where mainstream finance providers will look for evidence that past performance can service your borrowings, we’re interested in the opportunity you are seeking to take tomorrow and not yesterday’s profit. We’re open to taking the time to explore the opportunity so, even if you’ve been unable to access funding before, come and talk to us.

We aren’t about ticking boxes for a computer algorithm to make a lending decision. We want to get to know you; we’re interested in the challenges you’ve overcome, the bumps in the road, and your ambitions. We want to hear your business story to date and understand the opportunity you are seeking to fund. Yes, we undertake desktop research to complement the information you provide to us but fundamentally our appraisal process is personal; no computer-generated responses.

We’ll provide you with a dedicated Investment Manager who will work with you to present the best possible case to get your funding over the line. Complexity in the transaction is likely to be a given in many of our deals and our team are well-qualified to deal with this. They’ll meet with you as much as it takes to fully understand the proposal and will help ensure it’s in the best shape possible before being reviewed by independent experts.  

Our relationship-led approach doesn’t end with the money landing in your bank account - we don’t lend to you and then forget about you. You will be supported by a FSE Manager to contact throughout your time with us. Many of our customers come back to us for further funding, sometimes because the original plan needs additional finance and sometimes to fund an entirely new strategy. We will always try and support you on your growth journey; we’re with you for the long term.  

Our funds exist to break down barriers to accessing finance, which means you don’t need assets as collateral. Unlike many mainstream lenders, we don’t rely on charges over property to be able to support you. We take a debenture (a charge over company assets) and a limited personal guarantee from the shareholding directors to underwrite their confidence in the growth forecasts of the business. We are transparent from day one with our security requirements.

Of course we will need to gain all the information needed to decide whether your business is one we can invest in. These are not grants; they are commercial funds providing loans that need to be repaid. Our industry professionals will be looking to support you while lending responsibly so we are thorough in getting to know you and your business; our due diligence is robust. That said, we’ll ensure this is clear and straightforward and if you’re not suitable for these funds, we’ll let you know quickly, steering you to alternative funding sources where appropriate.

At FSE we’re really proud of the work we do to engage with businesses from diverse backgrounds and from across the whole of an area where we operate. This includes less-experienced teams, those operating in hard-to-reach geographical areas, those with female leaders and people from ethnic minority backgrounds. We have really strong female representation amongst our leadership at FSE and we are committed to ensuring that diversity is reflected across the range of businesses we work with.

The British Business Bank’s Investment Funds operate as commercial funds with commercial returns required. Investment decisions are made by the fund’s appointed fund managers [The FSE Group], not the British Business Bank.