Gary Grimes is a young entrepreneur on a mission. Having spent seven years with a non-bank lending company, from start-up to major player, at the start of 2020 he went into business on his own, setting up the brokerage Simplí Business Finance.
Based in his home patch of Crumlin, the company works with small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) to help them secure finance from any combination of 15 different lenders at one time.
According to Gary, bypassing the banks and going to a non-bank lender can often be the answer to a small business’s growth and cashflow problems. His aim is to make them aware of that, and to make it easy to get hold of the cash.
“Right now, about 85% of businesses in Ireland still believe that the bank is the only place they can get funding for their business,” says Gary, “and 75% of SMEs interviewed will say that the banks are making it more difficult for them to access capital.
“I'd seen, working in a lender, that the biggest challenge was the awareness, and once they are aware of it, then to have access to it. I'm a huge believer that it would be a huge help towards the recovery from the pandemic.”
Gary started with one client – now he has 74, and all managed by a tight team based in Crumlin, including his mam Theresa and partner Janice.
“I was lucky that I surrounded myself with the right people, who gave me the honest voice that I needed,” he says. “There have been opportunities for me to bring investment into the business in the last two years but I've always said no.”
This independent streak also has advantages for Gary’s clients, as he explains. “We've had lenders approach us and say, 'Hey, would you like to be an agent and we'll give you a retainer a month?',” he says.
“I've always stayed well away from that because I want to remain completely independent. It gives us an objective view of the market.”
Gary is happy to challenge misconceptions about non-bank lenders, as well. For a start, “These are not guys at the end of the street, or in a darkly lit room, these are actually incredibly sophisticated lenders,” he says.
And while he admits that non-bank lenders are often more expensive than the banks, he says that’s not the whole story. The challenges of Brexit and covid have prompted the Strategic Banking Corporation of Ireland (SBCI) – the government arm tasked with helping small businesses with funding – to launch a range of schemes to increase the supply of cash.
“What was previously a challenge in the cost of capital is now actually fixing itself,” Gary explains. “I do some asset finance deals for businesses where the cost of the money would actually be better than what they were getting with the banks. They'd get it faster and it'd be more accessible.
“Banks are a necessary evil and they're always going to be there, but the attitude they're giving Irish businesses at the moment is, 'It's hard to get money off us', and it shouldn't be.”
This problem has been costing people their livelihoods. Gary says that when he started the business at the start of 2020, he compiled a list of 169 hospitality businesses in Wicklow and Kerry. Two years later, 55 of them had closed.
“I firmly believe that had those 55 businesses been fully aware of the financing options that were available, that number would have been a lot lower,” he insists.
Post-covid, it’s a crucial time for those small businesses that have survived. Somewhat counter-intuitively, Gary says that the ever-changing tides of the pandemic have helped him fast-track the development of the business – five years’ worth of fine-tuning in just two, he says.
“We've had to realign our costs, realign the process and consistently change as lenders changed their credit templates,” he says. “That's all stuff that generally doesn't happen on a month-to-month basis, but was happening during covid.
“So right now, we don't need to change a thing. We can do from the origination of a loan to the funding of a loan within three business days. That's really, really important for us because speed of access to capital is massive for these businesses.”
All that development – as well as Gary’s obvious energy and enthusiasm, plus his years of experience – appears to have left the company in a good position to respond to the post-pandemic world. As small businesses emerge blinking into the light, they’re going to need access to finance in order to fulfil their potential. Gary and Simplí Finance hope they can help.
“I've been developing the business now for two years to get ready for what's about to come, because there's going to be massive working capital finance needs,” he says. “I'm making some key hires in the business now to help with the growth and move it on. So I'm very excited for what we can do.”
