Strata Finance
Is your business trapped under a stack of expensive short-term loans? We help UK businesses replace unsustainable debt with a single, affordable structure, built to last
The Problem
Over the past few years, thousands of UK businesses have been drawn into a cycle of stacking loans — multiple, very expensive, short-term unsecured facilities taken out one on top of another.
It usually starts innocently enough. A business takes a short-term loan to cover a cashflow gap. The repayments are steep, so a second loan is taken to service the first. Then a third. Before long, a business that was fundamentally sound is paying away a large share of its turnover in interest and fees, with little left to invest, grow, or even breathe.
Much of this has been driven by aggressive, slick social-media marketing from "brokers" who are under-qualified, not regulated, and paid to sell — not to advise. But they have been paid a handsome commission.
You know the ones — recently formed, with "experts" who usually have no finance background and no concern for EBITDA or debt serviceability.
The promise is always "quick money." The consequence, too often, is a business buried under unsustainable, high-cost debt with no clear way out.
Fig. 01 — Without Intervention
Outstanding tax debt that's triggering automatic declines from mainstream lenders before you even get a decision.
Revenue is real, but timing isn't — repayments, suppliers, and payroll are landing faster than cash comes in.
Turned away by your bank or a mainstream broker because your file doesn't fit a tick-box underwriting model.
Multiple existing facilities stacked on top of each other, eating margin every single month.
We are here to help solve financial problems for businesses, no judgement, no preaching, just good honest old-fashioned common sense.
OUR SOLUTION
Strata is a group of like-minded, seasoned professionals and trusted partners, with backgrounds in banking, accountancy and finance — here to give businesses an escape route from stacked short-term debt.
We recognise that under the stress of trying to service debt and run a business, most businesses are profitable and sustainable. Behind the debt there are people, livelihoods and mortgages to support also.
I suppose we are the "trusted tradesmen trying to repair the botch job." Our approach, like the geological layers our name is drawn from, is to rebuild your finances as a single, stable structure.
We look to consolidate multiple high-cost facilities into a longer-term, lower-cost solution, properly matched to what your business can actually afford to repay — through four core stages:
Fig. 02 — Post-Completion
Where tax arrears exist, we arrange a Time to Pay arrangement with HMRC through a trusted specialist partner. This clears the path for a successful refinance application.
We prepare integrated financial forecasts, profit & loss, balance sheet and cashflow — that demonstrate to funders exactly how the new, restructured debt will be serviced.
We submit a fully prepared funding proposal to longer term lenders, including the Community Development Finance Institutions (CDFIs) best suited to your circumstances. These are lenders that mainstream brokers rarely engage with.
Once the core debt is restructured, we can also arrange further funding. This can include invoice finance, purchase finance, or establishment of credit lines to support working capital and expansion.
Why Strata
We work exclusively in distress-refinance and CDFI funding — the market mainstream brokers find commercially unviable to service properly.
We resolve tax arrears through a Time to Pay arrangement before submission, instead of letting it cause an automatic decline.
Established relationships across the CDFI and specialist lending panel — funders that don't advertise and don't take open-market applications.
Every file is verified and packaged to each lender's exact underwriting criteria before it's submitted, so nothing sits in a queue for the wrong reason.
