Landscape Garden Company

• Client Stories
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• Landscape Garden Company

Last September, David Byford was presented with quite the challenge… but like any great broker, he revelled at the chance to find the perfect funding solution, so got to work and started making calls.  

His client was a million turnover landscape garden company. The problem? It had been highly unprofitable for around four years. A year ago, the business went through a huge restructure with the help of a consultant David knew very well. The rewrite of their strategy meant they required £125k to replace the aged equipment they currently used  – as with any modern business trying to stand out from the crowd, his client wanted to invest in better equipment that used updated software and cutting-edge technology.  

It was evident that an unsecured business loan was out of the question and approaching high-street banks was unlikely to return the results his client needed. However, with a large amount of equity in their £1.2m property in Oxford, a secured property loan seemed like the best route to explore. 

Having found no joy with high street banks due to their stringent criteria and focus on historic figures, as opposed to promising forecasts, David got taking to a lender who suggested his client take out a loan against the property for business purposes – however, rather than gradually reducing the amount throughout the loan term, the expectation would be no repayment until the term finished, at which point the client would either pay off the loan, restructure or sell their property. Whilst not the best solution, it was the only one available and so the process began. 

March rolled around and with the lockdown looming, David was happy to be days away from competition. However, things did not go as smoothly as planned and without any advance warning, the lender decided to exit the market and the deal came crashing to a halt.  

Disappointed and frustrated, David found himself talking to Dennis Pym, the Sales Director at Nucleus. Having limited experience with Nucleus, he didn’t realise we would be able to provide the exact product he was looking for, but a friendly conversation led to a light appearing at the end of a very long, exasperating tunnel.  

Yasmine Holliday, our Business Development Director called David an hour later and within 24 hours, he knew exactly what he needed to make the deal happen. Better yet, the secured business loan is in the company name, which both David and the clients were much more comfortable with.  

David Byford, Director at Byford Commercial Finance Ltd, said: “The customer is really happy; I’m very happy; we are all very happy. The whole process was all very simple and once the offer was out, it was completed within a couple of weeks.  

“To be honest, I didn’t know Nucleus could provide this sort of deal as I tend to mainly work with high street banks, and I was surprised when Dennis mentioned it. He could have simply told me tough luck, but instead he decided to help and was very forthcoming and helpful from the offset.  

“It’s all been handled well. I’ve not had something suitable for Nucleus previously, but I’ve gone from never having used them to using Nucleus twice in 6 weeks! Hopefully, I can keep that average up over the next few weeks and months. It’s been a pleasure.”