Arbuthnot Commercial ABL provides £1.2m CBILS loan for GJB Group
Arbuthnot Commercial Asset Based Lending (ABL) has supported window and door manufacturer, GJB Group with a £1.2m Coronavirus Business Interruption Loan (CBILS). This is in addition to the £5m all-asset funding transaction that was completed for the Group in November 2019.
Arbuthnot Commercial ABL was able to deliver the CBILS loan in just three days following its accreditation by the British Business Bank. Boosted by the additional funding, GJB Group has come out of the blocks trading strongly with an imminent return to full production.
The business, a fabricator of window and door systems to trade customers and installations for new build customers, was established 25 years ago. It operates from factories in Essex and Stoke and has a trade counter in Reading, having been acquired in 2017 by industry veteran Roy Frost the group CEO.
Sean McLaughlin, group chairman of GJB and a non-executive director or board advisor of a number of other diverse enterprises, said: “On 23rd of March, we made the incredibly difficult decision to implement a hard stop to all of our operations. This was clearly the right thing to do but it meant that, like so many others, we faced a hugely uncertain future and watched our working capital position slowly erode from the cessation of trading. I never envisaged the situation where I would call the main funder of the business to say that we have decided to close the doors for an indefinite period. From the outset, the approach from everyone at Arbuthnot was very supportive and having direct access to the decision-makers has been vital to us as a business, particularly during this hugely challenging time.
By contrast the other lenders that we approached were less helpful and constrained by institutional rulebooks or a desire to prioritise their other customers. The Arbuthnot accreditation for CBILS came just at the right time as we were losing all confidence in other lenders responsiveness. To their credit, Arbuthnot delivered the loan in a matter of days, giving us the vital buffer that we needed to bridge our working capital gap as we start to ramp up production.”
Andrew Rutherford, commercial director of Arbuthnot Commercial ABL, said: “We are delighted to extend our support to GJB Group during this exceptionally difficult time. As always, the key here was to deliver the level of funding required at pace giving the client comfort and confidence. Their experienced management team took prompt and decisive action in responding to the impact of the pandemic with a full operational shut-down and restart, a truly impressive feat. The new loan will help the business to power up and trade out of this challenging situation with resolve and resilience.”
