A small Midlands-based family business has been able to open new retail premises, with the help of Crystal Specialist Finance (CSF) and its range of lending partners.
Jacki and Russ Ward, along with their son Dave Ward, set up their first Chalk and Linen shop nearly three years ago in Coleshill, and when the distributor of Annie Sloan Chalk Paint offered them the opportunity to purchase a second property in Atherstone to expand their business they had to move fast.
The couple turned to their broker, Hugh Levine at Stephen Mayor IFA, who contacted CSF given the specialist nature of the transaction in order to find a way forward.
The solution entailed remortgaging the client’s residential property with Pepper Homeloans to generate the deposit and then to obtain the commercial finance from NatWest’s business & commercial banking team.
The CSF team then worked closely with Levine and Andre Parcian, broker business development manager and Surbjit Kaur, relationship manager at Natwest in order to get the case successfully completed in a timely, efficient and affordable manner.
Levine said: “Throughout the whole process I’ve been extremely pleased with the speed and involvement of CSF. The company had a hands-on approach from the start and moved it through to completion very quickly, they were proactive, knowledgeable and engaged with the whole process.
“All parties involved made the whole process much less stressful for us,” added Russ Ward. “We were so disappointed when we got knocked back initially, but CSF and NatWest support small businesses by making it easier. They really understood our vision and made it straightforward, exactly what we wanted as a customer.”
Pictured: (back row: L-R): Andre Parcian, NatWest; Hugh Levine, Stephen Mayor IFA; Jacki and Russ Ward; Kieran Everard, CSF; Surbjit Kaur, NatWest. Front row: Dave Ward.