It’s all about you

We support you and your business at every stage with expert advice that delivers outstanding results.

We provide accounting, tax and business advice to individuals, family, and owner-managed businesses from across our offices in Leeds, Manchester, Newcastle and York.

This article appeared in the York Press on Monday, 29 June, 2009

Workshops at Monks Cross, York to Offer Advice on Accessing Government Funding

Jeremy Oliver, corporate finance director at Garbutt & Elliott

How to unlock access by businesses to Government funding will again be the theme of a workshop organised by York chartered accountants Garbutt & Elliott.

It will take place on July 7 at Garbutt & Elliott’s offices at Monks Cross, York, starting at 5.30pm.

It follows the recent reports that two out of three valid applications by businesses had successfully received funding under the Enterprise Finance Guarantee (EFG), which was introduced in January by the Business Secretary Lord Mandelson to stimulate bank lending.

The EFG is a £1billion loan guarantee scheme delivered through the banks that will enable an extra £1.3bn of lending to businesses up to end March 2010. EFG provides a 75 per cent government guarantee on individual loans to viable businesses with less than £25 million turnover. It can be used to support new loans, refinance existing loans where the loan is at risk due to the deteriorating value of security or to convert part or all of an existing overdraft into a loan to release capacity to meet working capital requirements.

The loans of £1,000 through to £1 million, are repayable over a period of up to ten years.

Garbutt & Elliott’s attempt to show businesses in York and North and East Yorkshire how to take advantage of this is its workshop events, called Access To Finance.

Jeremy Oliver, corporate finance director at Garbutt & Elliott, said: “It appears that more and more businesses are trying to access Government funding and we are here to provide advice. We have excellent relationships with funders who want to help.

“Since the launch of the scheme, anecdotal evidence has suggested lenders were interpreting the rules about the taking of security in different ways. This confusion initially hindered many Yorkshire businesses from getting the help they so desperately needed, but the picture is clearer now”.

Since the last Garbutt & Elliott workshop in May, Lord Mandelson has announced changes in the EFG scheme to help to improve lending to businesses and social enterprises in disadvantaged areas.

The changes will provide extra support to Community Development Finance Institutions (CDFIs) by allowing them to access bank loans, worth up to £20million through the EFG scheme. Unity Trust Bank, in response to this change, has also announced that it is making an extra £5million available for onward lending by CDFIs.