Boss 'fully confident' of five more years for Sheffield-based British Business Bank

Keith Morgan said the bank, which has pumped £150m into more than 500 SMEs in the North, was already aligned with Boris Johnson’s ‘levelling up’ agenda.

A commitment to growing it was in the Tories’ manifesto at the last election.

And at the end of last year the National Audit Office found it had met its objectives.

Mr Morgan said future funding was still uncertain but the government had pledged to fill any gaps from the loss of EU cash post-Brexit over the next four years.

It comes as concerns have been growing over a lack of money or details about the Shared Prosperity Fund which was announced three years ago as a replacement for EU structural funds to ‘level up’ less well off areas - worth an estimated £605m to South Yorkshire up to 2027.

The British Business Bank, based in Steel City House on West Street in Sheffield, was launched six years ago with £6bn from government.

Including private sector investment, it has loaned or invested £7.2bn into 93,000 businesses.

Mr Morgan said: “I’m fully confident of continuing for the next five years. The areas we are focusing on are absolutely aligned with the levelling up agenda.

“We are already involved in scaling up and investing in some of the country’s most innovative businesses. We are clearly putting the case to government.”

The British Business Bank created the Northern Powerhouse Investment Fund which has put £150m, matched with £150m from the private sector, into 559 firms.

It is supported by a European Regional Development Fund grant of £140m and a £183m commercial loan from the European Investment Bank. Both will end after Brexit.

Historic Sheffield business Tinsley Bridge, which makes suspension parts for trucks, has borrowed £300,000 from NPIF has a contingency against a no-deal Brexit.

One of Sheffield’s largest manufacturers, it employs 200 in three divisions and dates back almost 200 years.

The company invented the parabolic tapered leaf spring used in more than 80 per cent of truck suspensions worldwide. It continues to supply suspension stabiliser bars for all Volvo, Renault and Iveco trucks.

Mark Webber, who has been managing director of Tinsley Bridge since 2002, said: “We are following a growth plan to increase turnover by 25 per cent over the next few years and already have investment in place to support that.

“However amidst the recent uncertainty, it became clear that we needed contingency funds to protect the business from unexpected shocks, for example to cover the need for increased working capital for stock in the event of a no-deal Brexit or, in the opposite scenario, a period of reduced sales while customers released the stockpiles they had built up.”

The firm also has a blades division, Tyzack Machine Knives, that manufactures products for the steel and scrap industry, and a fabrication arm that makes structures for energy, transport and infrastructure projects, including the powered hinges on the roof of the Wimbledon Number 1 court and the stainless steel dampers used to quieten the noise of trains on the Crossrail project.

The British Business Bank was set up to increase the supply of finance to smaller businesses where markets don’t work well and create a more diverse finance market.

Five years on, its latest report shows 52 per cent of smaller businesses that sought finance in 2019 contacted a provider outside of the ‘Big Five’ banks.

Since 2014, asset finance is up 32 per cent, equity finance is up 131 per cent, and marketplace business - peer-to-peer - lending is up 374 per cent, a new report shows.