Tradeplus24 Australia, a small and mid-size enterprise (SME) lending fintech, has restructured US$25 million of its existing debt facilities to underpin the execution of a material debt transaction of over US$100 million and reduce its cost of funding by 4 percent.
iPartners has secured the senior debt position and Wentworth Williamson has, alongside other existing debt providers, taken the remaining mezzanine debt position.
As a result of the transaction, Tradeplus24 is structuring a US$100 million growth debt facility at terms that will allow it to rapidly scale and offer SME lines of credit at comparable rates to lenders requiring residential property as collateral.
The company said that it aims to help stamp out unfair industry practices such as price discriminating against SMEs outside the bank’s lending criteria, controlling the SME’s bank account, preventing the SME from taking on other sources of debt, enforcing purposefully complex fee structures, and locking SMEs into contracts of up to 2 years.
Adam Lane, MD of Tradeplus24 Australia said,
“This new debt deal is an important reflection of the strong confidence the debt capital markets are showing in our unique structure.
With this cheaper debt, we hope to eliminate the need for more business owners to put their family home at risk to remain solvent, especially when they should be scaling up and growing the Australian economy.”