Bibby and Azets announce strategic partnership to boost funding for SMEs

Published by

Peter Davison

International SME funder, Bibby Financial Services and the UK’s largest regional accountancy and specialist SME business advisory firm, Azets, have announced a strategic partnership to provide whole-turnover invoice finance facilities.

The agreement, announced today (Monday), sees BFS become Azets’ preferred partner for funding facilities up to £250,000, enabling its network of 3,500 accountancy and advisory specialists to access working capital and cashflow solutions to support their clients.

Derek Ryan, UK managing director for BFS, said: “We’re delighted to partner with such a forward-looking organisation like Azets that shares our ambition to improve outcomes for UK SMEs.

“We want to further build on and complement the relationships we have throughout the intermediary and business advisory community.

"Azets’ commitment to delivering excellent service, coupled with its expert network of accountants and business advisors make it a natural and strategic fit for us, and we look forward to boosting support for UK SMEs together.”

BFS is the UK’s largest independent invoice finance provider, supporting more than 6,000 SME clients in over 300 industry sectors through its solutions, including Factoring, Invoice Discounting, Trade and Export Finance, Asset Finance, and specialist funding for the Construction and Recruitment sectors.

In November 2021, it was awarded Factoring and Invoice Discounter of the Year for the 15th time at the National Association of Commercial Finance Brokers (NACFB).

Neil Grogan, head of strategic partnerships at Azets, said: “SMEs are the lifeblood of the economy, and we’re committed to helping them through the provision of the expert advice offered throughout our network.

"As the largest independent invoice finance provider, BFS has both the expertise and scale to enable our accountancy and advisory specialists to better support their clients in 2022 and beyond.”

Azets is a UK Top 10 accounting firm. It is part of Azets Group, Europe’s largest regional accountancy and specialist business advisor to SMEs, employing more than 6,500 people and supporting some 120,000 clients.

Azets has offices in Newbury, Theale, Witney, Bicester, Gloucester, Evesham, Worcester. Bibby has an office in Basingstoke.

Peter Davison

Peter Davison is deputy editor of The Business Magazine. He has spent his life in journalism – doing work experience in newsrooms in and around Bristol while still at school, and landing his first job on a local newspaper aged 19. By 28 he was the youngest newspaper editor in the country. An early advocate of online news, he spent the first years of the 2000s telling his bosses that the internet posed both the biggest opportunity and greatest threat to the newspaper industry and the art of journalism. He was right on both counts. Since 2006 he has enjoyed a career as a freelance journalist. He lives in rural Wiltshire with one wife, two children, and three cats.