Refinancing

This is an area of asset finance of which some businesses are unaware, however, asset refinance can be a very effective financial tool for releasing capital from your existing assets and freeing up your cash flow.

If your company has already purchased expensive assets such as property, machinery or technology you can sell them back to a leasing firm who will reimburse you with the current value of the asset. You continue to use this asset as before and send the lessor regular payments.

Asset refinance can make a company more flexible by allowing it to react to a change in market conditions or respond to a financial problem such as a bad debt. It can also help to free up capital so that a firm can take advantage of a new business opportunity.

When refinancing assets an agreement is drawn up between the asset holding company and the lessor. Repayments are generally made over a fixed period of time at monthly or quarterly intervals and the rate of interest paid also tends to be fixed. The exact terms of each agreement will be different and it may be possible to negotiate non-standard terms with a lessor. Asset refinancing companies will usually try to be flexible as it is a competitive market.

As a rate of interest is attached to asset refinancing deals you will end up paying more than the original price of the asset over the term of the arrangement. It is a relatively low cost way to raise funds though and the benefits of refinancing often outweigh the extra cost involved.