Updated 13th January 2012
Business Loan Network Limited now has an office at:
Rock Farm, Seckington, Tamworth. B79 0LA. Telephone: 01827 425827.
Background to ThinCats.com
The Business Loan Network was established by the successful team that created the Advantage Early Growth Fund (AEGF).
During a discussion between menbers of the Claret Business Angels Club and Kevin Caley, MD of AEGF in November 2009 it became clear that there was considerable interest from private investors for lower risk investments that produced a regular, predictable return. Furthermore, Claret Club Member Paul Meier had access to the technology to create the web application needed to run an on-line auction site and provide business loans in a similar way to the Zopa personal loan method of auctions and 'peer-to-peer lending.
By April 2010 the business plan was ready and the initial capital for Business Loan Network was raised from memers of the Claret Club and other business angels who knew AEGF and were keen to be involved having already invested allongside AEGF in equity deals.
AEGF (www.aegf.co.uk)
is an £8.8m early stage ‘co-investment’ venture capital fund that always
invests alongside private investors on the same terms. AEGF pioneered low cost methods of managing a venture
capital fund, making small investments of £50k to £200k and showing it is
possible to run a small VC fund effectively in an industry with traditionally
high overheads. Those costs normally make small funds uneconomic to run. For two years running, AEGF was the most active VC investor in England making about 2 investments a month (a total of 61 companies in 5 years).
Having identified that the traditional ‘equity gap’ has now been overtaken by a new ‘Loan Gap’ caused by the recent financial crisis, the team intend to bring the same low cost approach to managing loans through the Business Loan Network Ltd.
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"We have created a high quality, low risk 'peer-to-peer' lending system for secured business loans with the specific objective of eventually attracting pension funds, family offices and other institutions. This will require an exceptional degree of professionalism and quality."
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Kevin Caley and Peter Brown are also the executive directors of AEGF but the Fund is now fully invested and they are managing the
process of exiting from the remaining 40 or so investments over the next 6
years.
Kevin Caley
BSc DMS MBA, Managing Director
Kevin Caley has a degree in metallurgy and started
his career as a production engineer and then graduate
training officer in the car industry.
After taking his MBA at Cranfield he has spent 27 years in venture
capital and small business finance, making over 350 investments and specialising
in the smaller, early stage end of the market.
During that time he set up and managed one loan fund and nine venture
capital funds and is now part time Managing Director of the Advantage Early Growth Fund. Kevin is the author of several books and
electronic publications on the subject of small business finance including
guides to funding a small business, interactive databases of grants and venture
capital and a DTI sponsored guide to setting up early stage equity and loan
funds. Most recently he was responsible
for a CD-ROM “Guide to Enterprise Investment Tax Relief” produced with RSM Bentley
Jennison.
Peter Brown
FCA, Company Secretary
Peter is a business consultant, interim manager
and non-executive director with considerable experience as Managing Director,
Finance Director and Company Secretary in a variety of business’s both large
and small. His particular expertise is
in investment due diligence, business valuation, interim management and
business turnaround. A hands-on manager,
willing to take on all tasks and understanding the need to lead by example and
motivate team members in order to bring the best out of a business. Peter is part time Operations Director of the
Advantage Early Growth Fund and mentors a portfolio of AEGF investee companies.
Paul Meier,
IT Director
Educated Cambridge (History) and MIT, Sloan School of Management (Financial Economics) Paul has a career in newspaper publishing being a director (since 1985) of Claverley Company, the holding company of the Wolverhampton Express &
Star, Shropshire Star, and Guiton in the Channel
Islands. He is also a director of the Claverley
technology subsidiaries; Press Computer Systems
(since 1982), and Itex Ltd (since 2004). His Key competencies are choosing strategic
computer technologies; large system specification and design; market research;
corporate finance, as pertains to private companies; and detailed pension and
investment knowledge gained as a trustee since 1993.
Paul founded Meier Pollard Limited in 2000 to
produce the Inrax
online accounting and ecommerce system (www.inrax.com)
which is used to power the Thincats website.
In 2005 he funded and chaired Selectapension, the leading provider of online calculators
to IFAs for pension transfers and management (www.selectapension.com). In 2005 he funded and is a director of Online Web Accounting Ltd (Ireland) to
develop an offshore accounting and data entry facility in Sri Lanka, and an
onshore front office in Dublin (www.onlinewebaccounting.com.
2007 he funded buying the assets of
Orchard Network from the liquidator into a Newco now called Rolonews
Limited, which is currently developing an online B2B and B2C news, advertising,
and business networking proposition. Rolonews will be making a significant contribution to the
Thincats website. Paul is responsible for managing the IT needs of the Business Loan Network.
The three founders are all particularly skilled at project management and share a philosophy of avoiding unnecessary costs. An approach which is disappointingly rare in the financial services industry.
Having prepared the business plan for Business Loan Network Ltd Kevin, Paul and Peter approached several of their friends and contacts who are experienced business angel investors to raise the equity capital with which to establish the business and at the same time find 10 founder
investors who were also interested in making loans through ThinCats.
The founder shareholders are therefore particularly interested in the way the business develops, have a range of skills and experiences to bring to the project and most are active lenders.
