One of the largest sheet plants in the UK has secured an £8m asset finance package from Bibby Financial Services (BFS).
Diamond Box was founded in 2007 by husband and wife Kavi and Rani Jundu. Today, the business employs more than 135 people in the West Bromwich area and has annual turnover of more than £25m. The business has seen significant growth in recent years with sales increasing by almost 29% in 2016.
The finance package, structured by BFS’s corporate funding team, combines a £6m confidential invoice discounting facility with a £2m lease finance package, enabling the business to purchase a machine that will allow the company to offer double sided print in one pass, which will in turn create significant additional capacity.
Kavi Jundu, CEO at Diamond Box, said: “We’re ambitious and the plan is to continue growing the business. Our main aim is to provide our customers a high level of design led innovation that adds value to their organisations, providing consistently high quality products supplied at competitive rates with best in market lead times. Our previous funding package was too restrictive and did not provide the flexibility we needed to enable us to satisfy increasing demand and stream-line efficiencies.
“Furthermore, we needed finance to purchase the UK’s first dual print corrugated cardboard printing press to help us to further enhance our position as the market leading packaging manufacturer into the e-commerce market sector. Aside from creating significant opportunity, the new machine will also create significant additional capacity which will allow us to offer consistent lead times during periods of peak demand. Other funders we spoke with would only consider financing the equipment after it was commissioned, but BFS were able to structure a package that finance the asset pre-assembly and commissioning, which was a huge benefit to us.”
Paul Fraser, regional head of corporate – central & south, at Bibby Financial Services added: “Diamond Box is a fantastic business and I’m delighted that we have been able to partner with them at a time of significant growth.
“This deal is a great example of our corporate finance expertise, combining receivables and asset finance to support both equipment purchase and ongoing working capital requirements.
“This new package will help Diamond Box to continue to satisfy the needs of its customer base and grow its business further.”
Jundu said: “We have grown significantly in recent years and it was critical to our future growth that we partner with a financier that both understands our business and could offer us the flexibility we need. This was a key factor in our decision to partner with BFS and we look forward to a successful relationship as our business continues to develop.”