Working Capital Loan for a Long-Established Pharmacy.

The Brief

The Ipswich-based pharmacy has been successfully trading since 1962, with the current owners taking the reins in 2012. The requirement was a £250,000 business loan which was urgently needed due to significant changes with the payment terms on the customers’ contract with the NHS, leaving the pharmacy facing a large cashflow deficit

What we were tasked to do

To provide an unsecured business loan over the maximum term of seven years in order to keep the customers’ monthly outgoings to a minimum. As the customer was planning to sell the pharmacy in the coming years, it was important to ensure no penalties or fees would be applied in the event of early settlement.

Challenges to Origin

The customer approached us a couple of months later than was ideal, as they had already started to miss payments on existing outgoings, resulting in returned direct debits on the bank statements. This significantly reduced the number of lenders whose criteria the customer still met. Had the customer spoken to us just two months earlier, before the negative impact of the NHS contract had taken effect, we would have had many more lenders to approach.

Outcome

Origin worked hard to demonstrate to the lenders that the cash flow issues were short-term and required the customer to adjust their business model to accommodate the new payment terms. We activated a seven-year unsecured business loan.