Investing in the Fund

London Business Loans is a perpetual, self sustaining loan fund set up to support disadvantaged businesses and social enterprises in London. We offer a double bottom line investment providing both a social and financial return.

We have a clear social goal with all investments supporting London's businesses and social enterprises at a time when they need it most.

Community Investment Tax Relief (CITR)

We are a Community Development Finance Institution accredited by BERR to offer Community Investment Tax Relief. This allows investors to benefit from a 5% per annum tax credit (equivalent to 8.33% pre-tax for an individual). Qualifying for this relief ensures that many of the businesses we support are from some of London's most disadvantaged communities.

To find out more about CITR and how you could benefit from it visit:

• The Department for Business Enterprise and Regulatory Reform (BERR)
• HM Revenue & Customs' CITR Manual

Fund performance

We have approved loan facilities of £1.3m to two CDFIs, and made £355,000 in larger loans directly to small businesses. More than £1.2m has been on-lent, allowing over 100 people to start a new business or grow an existing enterprise. None of these businesses would have been able to implement their plans, to create jobs and economic growth without the help of the fund, as all had trouble sourcing finance from other lenders.
Find out more about some of the companies the fund has helped

Our model can sustain itself at much higher bad debt levels than traditional banking providers. Therefore despite a deteriorating business environment, bad debts have been within forecast levels and we remain confident about our evaluation of propositions being brought to us.
Find out more about our response to the credit crunch

Debt investment

Investments are made for a minimum of five years, we expect to repay all investments when they mature.

The fund's unique design allows us to minimise risk to investors, as through our model bad debts from lending can be sustained at over 50% before loan investors would start to be affected.

An investment in the fund is assured to fulfil companies' corporate social responsibility aims, while in this economic climate earning relatively secure and above average returns.

Equity investment

London Business Loans are interested in speaking to potential equity investors. We expect that you will have a clear social goal for this investment without necessarily requiring the full commercial returns offered to loan investors. Any equity investment will be leveraged, allowing us to support more companies which would not be able to fulfil their plans without us.

Interested in becoming an investor?

If so, please contact the team at wholesaleloans@gle.co.uk for further details.