Photograph: (Left to Right) James Livingston and Amy Crofton of Foresight and David Harrop and Nick Smith of Reward Finance
Reward Finance Group (“Reward Finance”) has received an additional £10m investment from Foresight Group LLP (“Foresight”), to help fulfil the growing demand by SMEs for its business finance, trade finance and invoice finance products.
The latest investment by Foresight, a global independent infrastructure and private equity investment manager, comes just eleven months after providing Reward Finance with £40m, which enabled it to double its lending capability.
Having been founded in 2011 Reward Finance now forms 75% of Mettle Investments, a financial services company which is quoted on the South African stock exchange.
Speaking about the additional investment, Group Sales & Marketing Director of Reward Finance, Nick Smith, said,
“The fact that Foresight has added a further £10m to its initial investment of £40m demonstrates the faith it has in us to continue to maintain our impressive growth by providing SMEs with fast and flexible funding to enable them to grow their businesses.
“An increasing number of companies are turning to asset-backed funders like Reward Finance as traditional banks can be slow to react when, more often than not, funds are needed quickly. With the extra funding we will be able to quickly meet the growing demand for our finance products across the North of England, through our Leeds and Manchester offices.”
Commenting on the investment, Foresight Investment Manager, Amy Crofton said,
“Naturally we were already impressed with Reward Finance’s exceptionally strong track record of profitable growth when we made our original investment of £40m. The company continues to demonstrate huge potential and we have been pleased to invest this additional £10m to enable the Company to fulfil its reputation in the marketplace for a ‘can do’ approach to SME lending.”