You'll usually use a bridging loan for business if you want to buy premises or commercial property or if you're a career landlord purchasing property via a corporate entity or SPV. You can use business bridging finance to buy warehouses, office space, retail space, hotels, leisure areas, and other commercial real estate. Because these are usually significant investments, you might not want to use your company's capital to buy these properties. Doing so will usually use valuable working capital, which stops you from making other purchases, investments or going ahead with other projects, usually which generate good returns. 

However, bridging loans for businesses aren't only used to buy property. Because of the flexibility of this type of finance and the advantages (especially with regard to managing cash flow and working capital), you can also use them to make significant investments in your business. There are no specific criteria in these cases – you can use them to buy machinery and infrastructure, pay off a debt, cover a short-term funding gap, or invest in assets. You might also use a business bridging loan if you identify a potential opportunity for your business that you need capital to invest in. Again, use cases will cover many different scenarios but can include simple buyouts of another company or a business partner, investment and so on. 

What's most important here is your security for the loan – which will usually be property but can also include assets or infrastructure – and your business plan and exit. We will need to show that the loan and your plans for the capital support the ongoing success or growth of your business. If you can show this, along with a solid exit strategy, you will usually be able to get a business bridging loan. 

You can draw down bridging loans for a business very quickly – we can usually arrange deals that will see you be able to draw down capital in less than two weeks. When we organise a business bridging loan, we aren't only thinking about speed, however. Bridging loans for business can be complex and multifaceted, with lots of moving parts. In many cases, these loans need to be structured carefully alongside your in-house or external team, who will advise on how to organise the transaction most efficiently per your company's corporate structure. We are used to this – especially with more significant deals and can work with your team and advise on how to arrange the transaction to fit their requirements. 

Because bridging loans for business are available for every size company, both large and small bridging loans are available. Loans start at about £20,000, and smaller and medium enterprises are usually more natural applicants for this type of finance. At the top end of the scale, loans of £1 million or more are the norm for large businesses with more revenue. Provided your business, revenue, and financials support the loan, there is no limit on what you can borrow, regardless of the size of your business. 

While loans of different sizes are available, it's impossible to say exactly how much your business will be able to borrow, given what lenders offer will be dependent on:

• The amount you want to borrow (i.e., if you want a large loan or a small loan)
• Your industry and what your business does
• What you will put forward as security
• The financial strength of your business
• The complexity of the transaction
• Your exit
• Risk
• Your trading history

LTV of about 70% is usual for bridging loans for business, but you might be offered less, depending on how lenders view your application and financial situation. We will maximise what you can borrow and reduce your costs at the same time.

One of the most important factors in a business bridge loan is your exit. Bridging loans are always short-term, lasting around 12 months on average and up to three years at maximum. There is no minimum bridging loan term. Your business can borrow for as little as a few weeks or a couple of months if you require funds simply to bridge the gap between making an investment, acquisition or property purchase and longer-term finance or a liquidity event.

In any bridging loan for business, your exit strategy is imperative. It will be central to accessing this type of finance and our ability to broker the most competitive loan for you. Refinancing to a longer-term loan is common, especially when you borrow a significant amount. Another alternative is paying off the loan by accruing funds over the loan term and then repaying your lender with your business' own capital. 

Lenders are open to various exit strategies. However, you must be able to document your plans, and these must be workable – lenders will want to see your trading history and accounts if you will pay the loan back using your company's capital or see a viable case for refinancing. Here, in principle, offers can be helpful, and we can arrange for these at the same time as negotiating your bridging loan for business if needed. This often gives you and your lender more comfort and clarity on how you will structure debt in the medium and longer term. 

Because business bridging loans are so flexible and you can use them in many scenarios, lenders tend not to offer standard package rates the same way you'd see with conventional lending products like a mortgage. The security, your exit, your business plans for the loan, and other elements can all impact what lenders offer you.

That said, some lenders will be able to offer you more competitive rates than others, so working with a broker that can negotiate for you is always going to work to your advantage. We'll arrange a variety of business bridge loan financing offers to choose from, so you'll be able to showcase to internal and external stakeholders that you have sought out multiple offers and chosen the best deal.