From a first van to a saw mill in three years

Customer situation

A fencing contractor in North Yorkshire, starting out and needing a first vehicle with no trading history behind the business.

Asset required

A van, then two post knockers, then a £20,500 diesel generator, then a £72,000 Wood-Mizer saw mill, and most recently a £19,539 Wood-Mizer EG350 timber edger on a four-year agreement — six assets funded one at a time over three years as the business grew.

The challenge

The hardest asset to fund is the first, because a new business has nothing on file for a lender to assess. That first agreement does not happen on goodwill: a lender writing a new start wants either twelve months of trading behind the business, or a homeowner applicant with real experience in the sector — one of the two, every time. What comes after is a different problem: each asset is a bigger commitment than the last, and each sits in a different category. A van is a vehicle, a post knocker is fencing machinery, a generator is site power, a saw mill is timber processing plant — and not every lender that will fund one will look at the others. The saw mill was the biggest step of all, because it was not more of the same work: it moved a fencing contractor into milling its own timber.

Options considered

• Personal finance for the first van — would have put the vehicle in the wrong name and limited what came next.
• A new lender for each asset — re-explaining the business from scratch every time, and starting cold on machinery it had never borrowed against.
• CW Asset Finance route — one broker who knows the business and matches each asset to a lender with appetite for that category.

The CW solution

We funded that first van. As the work came in we funded two post knockers, then a used £20,500 generator to power the site work, and then the £72,000 Wood-Mizer — each one arranged against where the company actually stood at the time, and placed with a lender that understood the asset. Because the earlier agreements were on file and performing, each application was stronger than the one before rather than another cold start. That track record is what made a diversification purchase fundable, rather than a step too far.

Key outcome

Inside three years the business went from one van to running its own fencing machinery, its own site power and its own timber milling. The saw mill was followed by an edger, which is what turns milled boards into a finished, saleable product rather than rough timber — the clearest sign yet that the milling side is working. The company is now diversifying beyond contract fencing on the back of it, and has used CW Asset Finance for all six assets without once having to re-explain the business to a new lender.

“The first one is the hard one. After that what matters is that somebody remembers the business, and knows which lender will look at a post knocker or a Wood-Mizer rather than only the vans. Diversifying is where most contractors get told no — usually because the lender is being asked to back a business it has never seen before.”

— Conor, CW Asset Finance

Every application is assessed on its own merits and all finance is subject to status and lender approval. This is one client’s outcome and is not a guide to what any other business will be offered.