Anniversary year set to be PAF's best ever

Blackburn-based Praetura Asset Finance (PAF) is on track for its third consecutive record year as it has increased the number of SMEs it is providing funding to by more than a third in 2023.

This has resulted in PAF recording a 26 per cent rise in total capital provided, as it celebrates its tenth anniversary.

Founded in 2013, PAF was established to focus on providing asset finance facilities that concentrated on the needs of SMEs and business owners.

Over the past 10 years, the business has increased staff numbers from a team of nine to more than 40, including alumni from the graduate programme the company began in 2017, members of the team who have completed their apprenticeships with Praetura and a new apprentice who has recently joined.

Over the decade, circa 15,000 assets have been funded or refinanced by PAF helping a multitude of UK SMEs across the whole of the UK. In the first full year of trading the company averaged a lending total of around £1.8m per month, ten years later, monthly lending totals are in the region of £10m.

PAF was the founding member of the Praetura Lending Division, which is now five companies strong. The division comprises PAF, Kingsway Finance, Praetura Commercial Finance, Praetura Invoice Finance and Zodeq, employing over 130 people, with a combined loan book of over £350m.

Ric Simmons, managing director at Praetura Asset Finance, said: “I’m proud to have been a part of the Praetura Asset Finance story from the very beginning. And what a story it has been – the way the team has grown, and the number of brokers and their SME clients benefitting from our ‘more than money’ approach to funding increasing every year.

"I’m proud of what we have achieved as a team and I’m immensely proud of the team itself. I am very much looking forward to being a part of the next chapter for this amazing company and fantastic group of people.”