Our Commercial Brokerage is pleased to announce the completion of a £2M asset backed facility for the newly acquired Harland & Wolff. WhiteRock Finance sourced and secured the funding offer within 2 weeks of the engagement.
The business was in Administration for almost a year until InfraStrata PLC purchased the trade and assets in October 2019. Under a new management team, the business set itself ambitious growth targets with new income streams to be delivered from the 100 acre Sydenham Road facility. The challenge set for Whiterock Finance was to raise a £2M debt facility, effectively a start-up business, in that the new vehicle had no trading history given that it was recently bought out of Administration. This would be a significant challenge for traditional bank lending. Working alongside the CFO we were able to construct a detailed weighted pipeline of potential orders and associated cash flow forecast scenarios. We presented to the funder demonstrating and highlighting the management’s ability to deliver on the forecast assumptions and their vast experience in the sector.
Andrew Gowdy, Head of Property & Commercial Finance said:
“We were delighted to have assisted the InfraStrata PLC team in sourcing and securing a £2million asset backed debt facility. This facility will be used towards the delivery of confirmed orders recently secured by their newly acquired Harland & Wolff business.
We were familiar with the history and brand of Harland & Wolff, which exceeds 150 years of heavy engineering in Belfast. To be involved with a business such grandeur was an honour and very exciting for our team.
The business has designed and built some of the world’s most famous ships and has become highly regarded in ship repair and conversion across the world. Being a marine manufacturing expert has afforded the team the opportunity to expand into the Offshore market and into the Oil and Gas market.
The £2 million of new funding will enable the new management team to accelerate their growth plans and restore the shipyard to former glories.
The world-famous fabrication facilities also support the assembly and logistical methods that are necessary to supply offshore wind farms, serving a customer base in the Irish sea and beyond. The design engineering resource of Harland and Wolff is one of the largest independent and experienced marine design engineering consultancies with expertise on numerous challenging projects for the merchant, naval and offshore sectors.”
John Wood, Interim Chairman and CEO of InfraStrata PLC, said:
The introduction of this asset-backed debt facility validates our thesis of leveraging physical assets and creating cashflow sources. This has been possible due to the acquisition of Harland’s physical assets, something that we would not have been able to achieve with the Company’s portfolio of intangible assets.”