Recruitment firm unlocks expansion through the Growth Guarantee Scheme

Industry: Recruitment

Product: Invoice discounting and Growth Guarantee Scheme top-up

Facility size: £6.4M

Objective: Secure working capital for weekly payroll and multi‑year contract delivery

Value delivered: Higher headroom and stable, dedicated support to scale across three brands

The client

This well‑established temporary recruitment agency, trading for over two decades, supplies both blue and white collar staff in the infrastructure sector. The firm serves customers under three brands, covering general employment, rail, and construction, while operating as a single legal entity.

With a reputation for reliability among major organisations, this business seeks out candidates for a range of roles, including senior managers, chartered engineers, tradespeople, and project support staff.

The company is a long‑time user of invoice discounting, where money is released from unpaid customer invoices as soon as they are raised. This is particularly valuable in recruitment, where temporary workers are paid weekly or monthly while clients often settle outstanding charges on longer terms. By bridging this gap, invoice discounting provides predictable cash flow for payroll, suppliers, and day‑to‑day operations, and scales as the business grows.

The challenge

The company had secured additional, multi‑year contracts from several large customers. To seize these opportunities, they needed a flexible funding solution in place that could scale, facilitate payroll commitments, and smooth cash flow without adding administrative burden.

As they expanded, its previous facility was reduced and service levels had become inconsistent. The firm wanted a finance partner that could provide greater headroom, stable support, and a dedicated point of contact.

The solution

Close Brothers Invoice Finance tailored a £6.4 million discounting facility to aid the next phase of growth, continuing to release funds against outstanding invoices efficiently and in line with turnover.

To increase the available headroom, we supplemented the funding solution with a Growth Guarantee Scheme (GGS) top‑up. The GGS is a government‑backed guarantee that supports lending to growing businesses and, in this case, enabled a higher overall limit than would otherwise have been available. Alongside this, a dedicated relationship manager was appointed to deliver consistent, responsive support.

The result

With the enhanced facility in place, the company has the working capital to meet weekly payroll for its temporary workforce, manage sector seasonality, and onboard new multi‑year contracts without cashflow strain. The increased funding limit, supported by the GGS, has enabled them to scale activity across its three brands, strengthen relationships with key customers, and plan growth with confidence.

Equally, the dedicated account management has provided the stability and service continuity the business wanted, ensuring its finance partner understands its operations and can tailor support as needs evolve.