Praetura Asset Finance
The Manchester group's asset finance arm, writing hire purchase, leases and asset refinance from around £7,500 to £5m for owner-managed businesses, underwritten manually.
What they do
Praetura Asset Finance lends against plant, vehicles, engineering and construction equipment through hire purchase, finance leases and refinance of assets already owned, from Blackburn with regional sales directors across the country. Business is introduced by brokers, and the firm makes a point of manual underwriting rather than automated scoring, which is what lets it fund a credit that a scorecard would decline. It sits alongside the group's commercial finance and lending businesses, which are separate lenders with separate books.
Where they fit in a lower-mid-market raise
Where a business has fundable assets and an awkward year in its accounts, the willingness to underwrite by hand is worth more than a slightly finer rate. Refinancing owned equipment to release working capital is a common use, particularly around a management buyout where cash is needed at completion. Within a £3–15m structure it is the equipment tranche.
Where they are not the fit
The ceiling of around £5m sits at the bottom of a lower-mid-market raise, and everything requires a fundable asset, so an unsecured need has no route here. Pricing is quoted deal by deal through brokers and is not published. It is not a sponsor-backed leveraged lender.
Published terms
- Pricing
- Not published
- Speed to terms
- Not published
- Sponsored or sponsorless
- Corporate/owner-managed SME direct via brokers; not a sponsor-LBO lender
- Where they lend
- UK-wide; North-West heritage/HQ in Blackburn, Lancashire; regional sales-director coverage
- How they decide
- Broker/intermediary-introduced; relationship/manual underwriting; board- and regional-sales-director led
- Personal guarantee
- Typically required
As published by the lender and last reviewed August 2026. Terms quoted on a deal are set by the credit, not by a published band.
The desks that lend
Praetura Asset Finance lends through 3 separate books. Which one reads a deal decides the security, the covenant package and the band, so the question is rarely whether Praetura Asset Finance lends, but which of these would own it.
Hire purchase
- Facility
- £7.5k to £5m
- Security
- Secured on financed asset (HP title retention); PG likely on SME facilities
- Funds
- Growth
- Rules out
- No fundable asset or unsecured lend; Above ~£5m ticket
Finance lease
- Facility
- £10k to £5m
- Security
- Lessor retains asset ownership; PG likely on SME facilities
- Funds
- Growth
- Rules out
- No fundable asset or unsecured lend; Above ~£5m ticket
Asset refinance
- Facility
- £10k to £5m
- Security
- Secured on owned assets refinanced (sale-and-HP-back); PG likely on SME facilities
- Funds
- Growth · Refinance
- Rules out
- No owned asset to refinance; Above ~£5m ticket
How they sit against the category
- Its published ceiling is £5m; 26 of the 40 asset-based lenders here go at least as high.
- Like 29 of the 40, it publishes no indicative price — a margin comes from a conversation, not a page.
- It lends through 3 distinct desks, where most firms here run one or two.
Counted across the 40 asset-based & asset-finance lenders in this directory, on what each one publishes. What a lender discloses and what it will do are different things.
Questions this page answers
How large a facility does Praetura Asset Finance write?
Published facilities reach £5m, and the bottom of the published range is small-ticket business rather than a corporate facility. A band is what a lender states it will do, not what it will do on a given credit.
Does Praetura Asset Finance require a personal guarantee?
On Praetura Asset Finance's published terms, a personal guarantee is typically required. What a lender asks for on a given credit is settled in the documents, not by a published stance.
Does Praetura Asset Finance lend to companies without a private-equity sponsor?
Yes. Praetura Asset Finance lends to owner-managed and corporate borrowers, and publishes no private-equity sponsor proposition.
Where does Praetura Asset Finance lend?
UK-wide; North-West heritage/HQ in Blackburn, Lancashire; regional sales-director coverage.
What does Praetura Asset Finance lend?
The published product set is hire purchase, finance lease, asset refinance. Published sector focus is agriculture, construction, engineering, healthcare, hospitality.
On the record
2025: combined Praetura loan book (incl. Praetura Lending) reported £500m+/£569m milestone (Kingsway Finance / praeturaaf.com.
Sources: praeturaaf.com · finance-connect.com · find-and-update.company-information.service.gov.uk · prolificnorth.co.uk · assetfinanceconnect.com
This profile is a curated reference note drawn from public sources, not financial advice or a recommendation. Appetite and terms change; a lender's fit for a given credit is established by approaching it, not inferred from a page.