Time Finance and Ultimate Finance combine to create £650m SME lending platform

Time Finance is to merge with Ultimate Finance following a £55 million cash takeover by Bentley Park (UK), Ultimate’s parent company, in a deal which brings together two of the UK’s specialist SME lenders with a combined net loan book of some £650 million.

Ed Rimmer, Chief Executive Officer of Time Finance, said:

“The Time Finance Board believes there is a strong strategic fit between the two businesses, the combination of which will create a broader platform, introduce the benefits of additional scale and provide additional resources that can support future growth, without losing the focus on customers and introducers that have made our business great in the first place.

“The success of Time Finance to date has been built on the quality of its people; the experience and expertise of our colleagues, the relationships and service provided to our clients and customers and the support of our valued brokers and introducers.

“Ultimate Finance has been very clear about the value it places on these relationships and on the expertise that exists across Time Finance. We believe those things are a large part of what attracted them to the company in the first place and, with the offer for the company now announced, we look to the future with a considerable amount of optimism and excitement.”

Founded in 2000, Time Finance was admitted to trading on AIM in 2006 and has since grown to become a business that generated £37.1 million of revenues and profit before tax of £7.9 million in the year ended 31 May 2025. As at 30 June 2026, Time Finance had an unaudited net loan book of approximately £218 million, comprising approximately £141 million relating to the Asset Finance division and approximately £77 million in relation to the Invoice Finance division.

Josh Levy, Chief Executive Officer of Bentley Park and Ultimate Finance, said:

“This acquisition is an exciting opportunity to bring together two strong specialist lenders with complementary capabilities, shared values and a common focus on supporting UK SMEs.

“We believe Time Finance is a strong strategic fit for Ultimate Finance, combining a relationship-led approach, talented people and deep expertise, while creating opportunities to build on innovation and development using a genuine ‘best of both’ approach.

Ultimate Finance, established in 2002 and a wholly-owned subsidiary of Bentley Park, has funded over £19 billion to UK SMEs to date. Its net loan book hit a record of £430 million at the end of June 2026, and Levy said the acquisition “would create a larger, more scalable specialist lending platform with broader capabilities, greater resources and the ability to support more businesses across a wider range of funding needs.”

Bentley Park intends to delist Time Finance following completion and is embarking on a six-month review followed by an implementation period lasting up to nine months.