Bibby Financial Services secures €250 million HSBC funding line

Bibby Financial Services has agreed a €250 million financing facility with HSBC UK, adding capacity for lending to small and medium-sized companies in Europe and Asia. Bibby said the arrangement will help it preserve more than £1.1 billion of funding available to support SME clients.

The deal extends an existing relationship between Bibby Financial Services and HSBC UK. According to HSBC UK, the new facility covers back-to-back receivables financing across seven jurisdictions, giving Bibby additional funding to support companies that need working capital.

Receivables financing allows a business to raise cash against money it is owed by customers, typically through invoices or other trade receivables. In a back-to-back structure, a finance provider such as Bibby can fund SME clients while drawing on a linked facility from a bank, aligning the underlying receivables with the provider’s own source of liquidity.

For SMEs, the instrument can shorten the time between issuing an invoice and receiving usable cash. That can matter for companies whose costs, payroll or supplier payments fall due before customers settle invoices, particularly where cross-border trade adds longer collection periods.

The facility also gives Bibby access to HSBC’s Global Trade Solutions team. Bibby said the HSBC unit includes more than 150 working capital specialists operating across 50 countries and territories, with a remit to support businesses trading in international markets.

Theo Chatha, chief financial officer at Bibby Financial Services, said in the company’s announcement that flexible working capital remained a key issue for businesses in Europe and Asia, citing global tensions and persistent inflation. He said the extended HSBC partnership provided Bibby with capacity to help SMEs obtain finance for growth and competition.

Bruce Richards, head of strategic transactions for Global Trade Solutions at HSBC UK, said Bibby played a role in supporting SME expansion internationally. He said the pan-regional receivables facility would allow Bibby to increase support for smaller businesses, and referred to Bibby’s 40-year record of funding SMEs.

Bibby Financial Services provides invoice finance, asset finance and foreign exchange services. The company said it supports more than 8,500 businesses in domestic and international markets and employs 1,000 people across Europe and Asia.

The firm is part of Bibby Line Group, which Bibby describes as a 218-year-old family-owned business with operations in multiple countries. The new HSBC facility adds bank funding behind Bibby’s SME finance platform at a time when working-capital access remains a recurring constraint for smaller companies exposed to inflation, supply-chain pressures and international payment cycles.

This story draws on original reporting from Finextra Research.