A small Midlands-based family business has been able to open new retail premises thanks to the lateral thinking of Crystal Specialist Finance (CSF) and its portfolio of lending partners.

Jacki and Russ Ward, along with their son Dave Ward, set up their first Chalk and Linen shop nearly three years ago in Coleshill, and when the distributor of Annie Sloan Chalk Paint™ offered them the opportunity to purchase a second property in Atherstone to expand their business they had to move fast.

The Ward’s turned to their broker, Hugh Levine at Stephen Mayor IFA who contacted CSF given the specialist nature of the transaction in order to find a way forward.

The solution entailed remortgaging the client’s residential property with Pepper Home Loans to generate the deposit and then to obtain the commercial finance from NatWest’s Business & Commercial Banking team.

The CSF team then worked closely with Hugh and Andre Parcian, Broker Business Development Manager and Surbjit Kaur, Relationship Manager at Natwest in order to get the case successfully completed in a timely, efficient and affordable manner.

Hugh Levine said: “Throughout the whole process I’ve been extremely pleased with the speed and involvement of CSF. The company had a hands-on approach from the start and moved it through to completion very quickly, they were proactive, knowledgeable and engaged with the whole process.”

“All parties involved made the whole process much less stressful for us,” added Russ Ward. “We were so disappointed when we got knocked back initially, but CSF and NatWest support small businesses by making it easier. They really understood our vision and made it straightforward, exactly what we wanted as a customer.”

Crystal Specialist Finance operates across five specialist core divisions: Bridging, Commercial, Development Funding, Second Charge Loans and Specialist Mortgages. Open to applications on all types of properties in England, Scotland and Wales, the company has access to over 70 lenders, including exclusive product lines.