Weston-Super-Mare business cleans up with Aldermore funding
Aldermore, the specialist lender and savings bank which recently celebrated its seventh anniversary, has provided a £2.5m invoice financing facility to the UK’s premier housekeeping support service Central Facilities Group Ltd, based in Weston-Super-Mare. The company supplies cleaning and facility management for hotel groups such as Hilton/DoubleTree, Crowne Plaza and Ramada. The finance will enable Central Facilities Group to expand its business further by increasing its portfolio of retail and commercial clients.
The business was set up over 13 years ago and grew from a handful of local Somerset clients as more companies saw the advantage in outsourcing housekeeping and cleaning functions.
Central Facilities Group now employs over 2,000 people and is expanding rapidly, with the company’s turnover tripling in the last seven years. The group uses invoice discounting in order to respond to opportunities quickly and to be able to pay employees’ wages in time. With this finance facility from Aldermore, and at a time when the group is sometimes taking on 14 new hotels in a week from existing clients, Central Facilities Group will be in a good position to grow its client base further and the number of hotels it is able to service.
Kevin Robinson, managing director at Central Facilities Group, said:
“All businesses have to consider their cashflow, and this funding from Aldermore will allow us to close that gap and react quickly to our clients’ expanding businesses, while we expand our own by taking on new clients. Aldermore supports our growth plans and increases funding levels against increased debtor levels quickly. We had various situations where we took on hotels or had to pay out considerable amounts in unpaid salaries within three to four weeks. I cannot think of many other finance sources which would have the flexibility to make these management decisions without protracted discussions, by which time the opportunity would have been lost.”
Mark Leonard, head of relationship management for the south region at Aldermore, said:
“Central Facilities Group is a really impressive business which pulled through the financial crisis and is now taking on so many more projects.
“With the new finance facility in place, the group is able to grow and expand the number of hotels and leisure venues which they service, and will be well-placed to continue to be the UK’s premier housekeeping support company.”
