A new €35m finance fund for SMEs will target fast-growing firms with turnover of between €3m and €25m and EBITDA of more than €1m.

The fund was launched this week by Beechbrook Capital, a UK-headquartered lender that services the SME sector in northern Europe.

Other institutional investors involved in the new fund include the Ireland Strategic Investment Fund (ISIF) and Certior Capital, a Helsinki-based European private credit manager, who have committed €16m each.

With additional investments to the fund already pledged, including conditional approval for a further €4m from ISIF and Certior, Beechbrook expects to hold further closes through 2019, with a target fund size of up to €100m.

The fund will be managed from Beechbrook Capital’s office in Cork. It will focus on funding SMEs in the regions and regional growth hubs throughout Ireland. Beechbrook has also opened a new office in Dublin.

In Association with

The fund builds on Beechbrook's existing European private debt fund strategies, which invest in lower mid-market private equity-backed businesses in northern Europe and non-private equity-backed businesses in the UK. The existing private debt funds have raised over €750m to date.

The new fund will provide mainly senior secured loans to Irish SMEs that are seeking funding to support growth plans, acquisitions, buy-outs, shareholder re-alignments and domestic and overseas expansion plans.

The Beechbrook Ireland SME Credit Fund is co-headed by David Merriman  and John O’Sullivan (pictured). Merriman worked with Bank of Ireland for some 30 years, while O’Sullivan worked with Enterprise Ireland for 10 years.

Nick Fenn, Beechbrook managing partner, said that the Ireland SME fund is a natural evolution for the company.

“We are pioneering this type of funding to Irish SMEs," he said. “We have received numerous requests for it from family and manager-owned businesses around the country, which are acutely aware of the shortage of long-term development and expansion finance currently available.”