CBILS is a new scheme, announced by The Chancellor in the recent Budget, that can provide facilities of up to £5m for smaller businesses across the UK who are experiencing lost or deferred revenues, leading to disruptions to their cashflow. This is a separate scheme from a number of the other measures (such as the Coronovirus Job Retention Scheme and, for larger firms, the Covid-19 Corporate Financing Facility) being offered by the Government in its response to the Covid-19 pandemic.
CBILS supports a wide range of business finance products, including term loans, overdrafts, invoice finance and asset finance. The scheme provides the lender with a government-backed guarantee potentially enabling a ‘no’ credit decision from a lender to become a ‘yes’. The borrower always remains 100% liable for the debt. Details of participating lenders can be found at https://www.british-business-bank.co.uk/ourpartners/coronavirus-business-interruption-loan-scheme-cbils/accredited-lenders/
Key features of the CBILS scheme are as follows:
- Up to £5m facility: The maximum value of a facility provided under the scheme will be £5m, available on repayment terms of up to six years.
- 80% guarantee: The scheme provides the lender with a government-backed, partial guarantee (80%) against the outstanding facility balance, subject to an overall cap per lender.
- No guarantee fee for SMEs to access the scheme: No fee for smaller businesses. Lenders will pay a fee to access the scheme.
- Interest and fees paid by Government for 12 months: The Government will make a Business Interruption Payment to cover the first 12 months of interest payments and any lender-levied fees, so smaller businesses will benefit from no upfront costs and lower initial repayments.
- Finance terms: Finance terms are up to six years for term loans and asset finance facilities. For overdrafts and invoice finance facilities, terms will be up to three years
- Security: At the discretion of the lender, the need for security may be waived for facilities of £250,000 or less. For facilities above £250,000 the lender must establish that the borrower is unable to provide security before it agrees to make an unsecured loan available under the scheme.
- The borrower always remains 100% liable for the debt.
To be eligible for a facility under CBILS, an SME must:
- Be UK-based in its business activity, with annual turnover of no more than £45m; and
- Have a borrowing proposal which, were it not for the current pandemic, would be considered viable by the lender, and for which the lender believes the provision of finance will enable the business to trade out of any short-to-medium term difficulty.
Businesses from any sector can apply, except the following:
- Banks and building societies
- Insurers and reinsurers (but not insurance brokers)
- Public-sector organisations, including state-funded primary and secondary schools
- Employer, professional, religious or political membership organisations
- Trade unions
Note that if the lender can offer finance on normal commercial terms without the need to make use of the scheme, they will do so.
Please do not hesitate to contact any of James Lyons, Julian Barker or Jonathan Jarvis at Devonshires for further details or assistance in relation to the CBIL scheme.
