The award-winning Henry Howard Finance Group (HHF) was established in 1996 with a vision to deliver flexible, accessible and responsible finance solutions to SMEs in a variety of sectors.
Now, more than 20 years since its foundation, HHF has grown to become one of the UK’s largest independent finance houses, assisting more than 20,000 businesses across the UK with asset, vendor, retail, cashflow, commercial and property finance solutions.
In 2016 alone, HHF provided finance to more than 6,000 businesses, lending in excess of £150m. Its group portfolio currently stands in excess of £250m. With a broker-like mentality and commercial funder scale opportunities, HHF is the business finance provider of choice.
Headquartered in Newport, South Wales, Henry Howard Finance Group provides a ‘one stop shop’ for SMEs and provides access to finance, equipment and commercial lending services through its five divisions. These include:
Henry Howard Asset Finance
HHF’s asset finance solutions are a simple, cost-effective means to fund the essential equipment needed to help grow your business. Regardless of your industry, we help businesses of all sizes to finance business-critical equipment, including industrial machinery, construction equipment, and commercial vehicles, ensuring that our client’s ambitious growth plans become a reality.
Henry Howard Vendor Finance
Making finance easy is our motto and something we strive to achieve in all of our funding services. HHF’s specialist vendor team have worked with hundreds of businesses across the UK to provide fast and flexible leasing solutions, as well as access to industry-leading technology, a dedicated sales support service and innovative funding facilities to support equipment vendors.
In 2016, HHF also launched HowApp, a portable, modern, cloud-based app created to support the sales process by providing quick and easy access to finance. HowApp allows vendors to edge ahead of their competitors and set up simple and competitive finance agreements for their clients in a few clicks of a mouse, increasing efficiency and saving time in the process.
Henry Howard Retail Finance
With more than 20 years’ experience in finance and refinance solutions, HHF supports retail and vendor suppliers in the shop-fitting and retail equipment market to manage their cashflow and preserve capital and existing bank credit lines, while financing vital assets such as display shelving or ePoS systems, needed to grow their business.
Henry Howard Cashflow Finance
HHF provides invoice discounting and invoice factoring solutions for businesses looking to improve their cashflow. From invoice factoring to discounting, our cashflow finance options allow clients to achieve financial stability, keep their suppliers happy, free up cash for new contracts and plan for business growth.
Henry Howard Commercial and Property Finance
Launched in 2017, HHF’s newest service accommodates all of a business’ property financing needs, from short-term bridging loans to long-term commercial mortgages, property investment and crowdfunding.
Businesses we’ve helped
Teaming up with Infinite Distribution
HHF partnered with Infinite Distribution to offer asset finance solutions to businesses seeking affordable access to state-of-the-art CCTV, fire and security systems. The exclusive deal makes leasing agreements available to security installers who purchase their equipment from Hertfordshire-based firm Infinite Distribution.
Exclusive partnership with Wissner-Bosserhoff
German medical and nursing home bed and furniture manufacturer, Wissner-Bosserhoff, launched an exclusive partnership with HHF which will allow the company to not only grow within the UK market, but also offer straightforward and flexible finance solutions to British customers wishing to purchase its high-end nursing home and hospital beds.
A partner of choice for Chess Partner
Earlier this year Chess Partner, a leading telecoms and ICT provider, launched its own leasing service enabling partners to offer customers hardware on a monthly payment contract, with the assistance of finance provided by HHF. As a result of the funding, Chess Partner has been able to continue its company growth and expand the products and services it offers to customers.
Helping Caldicot Fleet grow
Caldicot Fleet, a Monmouthshire-based vehicle recovery firm, previously received finance from HHF to expand its business and in January 2017 returned to the firm for additional support. Between 2011 and 2016, Caldicot Fleet grew its provision of maintenance trucks from seven to sixty-five with the funding it received and increased its staff headcount from fifteen to more than seventy employees.
Funding the future of medical research
HHF provided finance to a Welsh university to fund the purchase of a 3D printer, used to create orthopaedic surgical implants. The cutting-edge equipment allowed the university’s engineers to advance their research into the development of 3D printers for medical and manufacturing use.
Simplifying credit decisions for Alert Systems
In November 2016, HHF provided a major new client with access to its online leasing portal, HowApp. Alert Systems, a Wiltshire-based security company, selected the HHF’s platform as it could be easily integrated with its own systems and used to support its sales team by providing immediate credit decisions linked to customer contracts.
The Henry Howard Finance Journey
Henry Howard Finance Group was born in Wales in 1996 when Mark Crook, group chief executive officer, and Howard Ross, executive chairman, joined forces with a shared entrepreneurial vision for SME funding. Together, they recognised that key financial decisions for SMEs were frequently hindered by time-consuming applications and lengthy approval processes with traditional high street lenders.
After identifying this gap in the market for a flexible and responsible asset finance house that understood the challenges SMEs up and down the UK face on a daily basis, Mr Crook and Mr Ross dedicated the next four years to building the firm, establishing a dedicated sales team and attracting key accounts. After initially beginning its life as a niche brokerage, HHF fast developed into a finance house with its own book facility and in-house lending line.
In 2014, HHF secured a £25m investment from private equity firm Cabot Square Capital, which further expanded the company’s lending capacity to meet the growing SME funding gap and supported the restructuring of the company into specialist divisions. Two years later and the firm secured a milestone asset funding deal worth £51m with the British Business Bank, a government-owned but independently managed body.
HHF is the first South Wales-based business, and one of only three businesses in the UK, to be awarded this funding line. This additional funding allowed HHF to further develop its lending portfolio and increase its financial support services to more businesses across the UK, a portfolio which currently stands at more than 20,000 UK-wide customers.
For more information about our finance services, speak to our friendly advisors on 01633 415 222 or email enquiries@hhf.uk.com.