Fletchers Group secures £8m credit facility to spearhead growth

Fletchers Group has agreed a new £8 million credit facility with its bank to invest in its organic growth strategy.

The legal services business, which specialises in medical negligence, serious and motorbike injuries, was acquired by Sun Capital last October.

Alex Lynch, chief financial officer at Fletchers, said the new facility, negotiated with RBS and completed at the end of August, replaced £4 million of debt and includes an option for a further £2 million: “The finance facility will be used to drive our ambitious organic growth plans over the next three years.”

She continued: “We will be increasing our investment in marketing, continuing to grow our medical negligence brand, PCL, and looking to grow market share in our two new areas of PI; cycle and ELPL.”

“Our investment plans will also see us processing cases more efficiently and improving our case selection, and while we have already made significant progress in bringing technology into the business to work alongside our people, we will be investing further in AI and data analytics capability to enable us to do this.”

Commenting on the deal, Paul Gaynor, relationship director at RBS, said: “We ran a comprehensive due diligence on the group, including external WIP due diligence, and we’re hugely impressed by the strength of the business, it’s ambitious but achievable plans for growth, and the strength in depth of the management team.”

He added: “We have been bankers to the group for over twenty-five years and it’s great to be able to support such a progressive business; it is in prime position to benefit from the opportunities arising in a rapidly changing market, post pandemic.”

Alex explained that Fletchers requires capital to underpin its strategy of growing market share and building on its recent success of attracting high-value claims: “In a high growth environment, our business consumes cash from day one, and higher value cases, which take longer to settle, tend to strain capital. As we continue to build market share in this space, this greater capital facility gives us the necessary financial protection to cement our place in this part of the market.”

Fletchers expects to give a trading update in Q4 2022, when it will share more detail about its growth plans.

Image: Canva

Mark Dugdale