Accelerating Expansion: Oakmead Finance's Role in London Vehicle Rental Company's Growth

An established vehicle rental company based in London, offering short and long term hire options to their customers on a large range of vehicles was looking to expand and had identified a new site in South West London to move to.

With the new site secured they needed finance to purchase the vehicles required to fill the larger site.

The business approached a number of known asset finance providers all of whom were offering a similar deal structure on similar terms with a lengthy list of requirements and an undefined completion period.

They finally approached Oakmead Finance specifically to obtain a view from a smaller asset finance provider who would be able to act quickly and provide the funding in a short period of time.

One of our asset finance team met with the Managing Director to understand their needs and financial requirements and following the meeting identified a small number of commercially-minded lenders who placed the underlying asset, the strength of the management team and the plans of the business ahead of financial performance and credit rating.

Within 48 hours an agreement was put in place and a substantial credit facility was secured against the value of the new vehicles. The deal was structured so that the company didn’t have to offer payment upfront on each vehicle, and allowed for VAT delays and balloon payments.

The business has since opened at their new premises, employing 8 additional staff and growing so much so that they are looking to open a second site in North London.

“The assistance we received from Oakmead Finance made it possible to open our new site. The help from Richard and the team has been fantastic and gave me one less thing to worry about. There was no waiting for a decision. They worked to our timescales and generated an offer of a facility within 48 hours. This meant we were able to get up and trading as soon as possible.