A financing case lenders can understand
Base-case debt service first. Operating upside second.
Our lender proposition is deliberately conservative: base-case debt service first, operating upside second.
Gross UK SME bank lending increased 9% to £68 billion in 2025, with challenger and specialist banks accounting for 60% of gross SME lending. British Business Bank, 17 Mar 2026
The British Business Bank's Growth Guarantee Scheme had supported £3.64 billion across 21,194 facilities by March 2026. British Business Bank, May 2026
The lender problem
A value-creation plan can be persuasive and still be unsuitable as a debt-service assumption. AI savings, price increases, bolt-on acquisitions or cost programmes may be possible, but they should not be the only reason the financing works.
Our view
The financing case should stand on the existing business, with transformation as upside, never as the rescue.
What we do
The lender should be able to see how sustainable EBITDA converts to cash, what working capital does through the year, where customer and supplier concentration sits, what capex is unavoidable, what technology liabilities exist, how dependent the company is on the founder and how the business performs in a downside case.
Operational improvement is then presented as upside.
What you get
Financing partners receive a sponsor narrative anchored in existing cash generation, transparent downside thinking, visible management accountability and a post-completion reporting discipline.
Why North Axiom
We approach acquisition finance with an understanding of credit, cash, capital allocation, operating risk and the practical consequences of ownership. That helps keep the lender narrative anchored in sustainable cash generation, downside resilience and visible management accountability rather than transformation optimism.
What lenders should see
Earnings quality, working-capital seasonality, customer and supplier concentration, maintenance and growth capex, founder and key-person dependency, material legal, regulatory, cyber and technology risks, downside cases, sources and uses, and the first operating priorities.
What the lender should not be asked to underwrite
Unverified AI savings, speculative M&A synergies, unidentified headcount reductions, unaccepted price rises, uncommitted bolt-ons, aspirational Factory or unvalidated Labs benefits, or unsupported technology-transformation savings.