Centric announces rebrand to Shawbrook Business Credit

Centric Commercial Finance has today announced a major rebrand to Shawbrook Business Credit. This follows its successful acquisition by Shawbrook Bank in June 2014.

In 2008, John Onslow, Tim Hawkins and Andrew Rutherford left GE Capital to set up Centric Commercial Finance with the backing of private equity house Cabot Square. The team built the business from a standing start over six and a half years, to an organisation delivering more than £220m of funding to SMEs.

Today, Shawbrook’s substantial backing has provided the team with a strong platform to take advantage of the significant growth opportunities for asset-based lending in the UK mid-market and step up to larger transactions. Increased facility limits of £25m have already been announced this year, signalling Shawbrook Business Credit’s ambitions and commercial appetite in delivering further levels of funding to private equity deals.

The purchase has provided Shawbrook with the exciting opportunity to broaden its range of lending services and to be a more prominent business lending bank in the SME space.

Tim Hawkins, commercial director, commented: “We’re very proud to be known as Shawbrook Business Credit. The integration post-acquisition couldn’t have gone any more smoothly for our clients, our introducers and us. It really helps that we share the same values and customer service ethos as Shawbrook Bank and that shines through.”

“For us it has very much been business as usual and we are completing very high quality deals in the M&A space. Our team of senior decision-makers is unchanged, as is our commitment to delivering the quantum and certainty of funding, speed of delivery and focus on quality service that our key business introducers and clients have come to expect from us. We would like to take this opportunity to thank them for their continued support and look forward to an exciting new era of growth together.”