Four businesses attract over £9 million from the Scottish Loan Fund

Finance Secretary for the Scottish Government, John Swinney, has announced that a further four businesses are benefiting from £5 million of funding from the Scottish Loan Fund (SLF), with the option to drawdown up to £9 million. A total of £15 million has now been committed to ambitious Scottish companies since the Fund was launched.

Managed by Maven Capital Partners, the SLF offers finance of between £250,000 and £5 million to Scottish-based growth or export businesses. The Fund, which had its first close at £94 million, has recently completed its second and final close, with £19 million of additional private sector commitments taking the total fund size to £113million.

Alongside a recent investment in an established Aberdeen-based energy services business, the three other companies receiving support from the Fund are Booth Welsh Automation, Red Spider Technology and ROVOP.

The SLF is providing working capital to Red Spider Technology. North-east based Red Spider manufactures and supplies a range of unique remotely operated well-intervention and completion tools to the international oil & gas industry. The company has been working in recent years to increase its international trade with a focus on Europe and Asia.

Ayrshire-based engineering services firm Booth Welsh Automation has also secured funding to help deliver its next phase of growth. The business employs over 150 people at its Stevenston base and the SLF investment will be used to provide additional working capital to help fund the forecast growth in new contracts.

Another successful business which received SLF funding is ROVOP, an independent specialist operator of Remotely Operated Vehicles (ROVs) servicing the offshore oil & gas and renewable sectors. The business is seeing a high level of enquiries and tender opportunities, and the SLF funding will provide valuable working capital for the acquisition of additional ROVs to be used in fulfilling long term wind farm contracts recently secured with major international marine contractors. 
 
John Swinney, Cabinet Secretary for Finance and Sustainable Growth, said: “The Scottish Government and our enterprise agencies are providing the supportive business environment that will allow our small and medium sized companies to unlock new investment and secure affordable finance."

“I am encouraged to see that an additional four businesses are benefiting from the Loan Fund. We will continue to assist innovative, high growth firms as part of our drive to build sustainable economic growth for Scotland."

Andrew Craig, Partner at Maven, said: “We are encouraged by the quality of enquiries we continue to receive for the Scottish Loan Fund and Booth Welsh, Red Spider and ROVOP are the type of businesses for which the SLF was established, with innovative product offerings, strong growth strategies and ambitious management teams which will help contribute to their success.” 

“We have been very impressed by the management team of each business and believe that they can now move forward with confidence in delivering their growth plans.”