Onside Issue 6 - 35

35

What's the relationship with
Seneca? (CW)
For us as a new business, Seneca have been a
great backer. Not only in terms of providing our
initial £10 million of lending funds, which was
a real vote of confidence in our project, but the
wealth of knowledge and experience that exists
within the Seneca Partners business is something
we have been able to draw upon regularly.

How did the first year go? (CW)
We have been very happy with the market
reaction. The broker market especially has
confirmed what we thought; that there is no-one
else offering these services. Turnover was in line
with expectations and we made a healthy profit
which sets us up well for our expansion plans in
the coming year.
We have also enjoyed seeing our products used
in ways we didn't envisage, but which have turned
out to be very useful for some clients. An example
of that is where clients can obtain trade credit
from their suppliers. It would seem logical that if
this is the case, there would be no benefit to a
Trade or Stock Finance line from us. However, for
some clients, because the inbound stock is in high
demand in the marketplace and they convert their
stock into sales so quickly, the increased buying
power they get from using our facility allows
them to pay for their stock in full immediately
after agreeing a deal with suppliers, which means
our facility has catapulted them to the top of
their suppliers most-liked list. The additional
costs involved in paying for our facility are far

Chris Divers
Director, Seneca Trade Partners
E cd@senecatradepartners.com
T 07790 070 090

outweighed by the discount they can get for
paying for goods on the nose, and the increase in
gross margin they obtain by often being the only
seller to have these goods on hand in the UK. We
never really anticipated that our Stock Finance
products would be useful where clients already
get credit from their suppliers.

What have been the biggest
challenges since launch? (CD)
Educating the market that these products
are available has probably been the biggest
challenge. It's getting easier all the time but it took
a substantial effort to get the message out there
that this sort of funding exists.
Because our products are genuinely new, some
sections of the market thought it was too good
to be true. Now that we have a number of deals
under our belt, some of which have completed
in full and repaid us, it's easier to talk to brokers
and business owners using examples of actual
transactions that we fund and have funded.
This ability to talk in specific rather than abstract
terms has made a huge difference to the level
of engagement we have seen and the last few
months have been incredibly busy, so much so
that we have recognised the need to expand the
team to deal with the volume of enquiries we
are now getting. To that end, we are pleased to
welcome a new Director to Seneca Trade Partners;
Mark McGuire has joined us from Goldcrest.



Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of Onside Issue 6

Contents
Onside Issue 6 - Cover1
Onside Issue 6 - Cover2
Onside Issue 6 - Contents
Onside Issue 6 - 4
Onside Issue 6 - 5
Onside Issue 6 - 6
Onside Issue 6 - 7
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Onside Issue 6 - Cover3
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