Client: UK national entrepreneur and UK resident
Challenge: Required non-recourse lending against private shares without pledging additional assets
Loan Amount: £9.5M facility at 50% LTV
A UK-based entrepreneur approached Enness seeking to raise capital secured against a significant shareholding in a mature late-stage private company valued at approximately £20M, with an anticipated IPO expected within the next three years. The client’s objective was to unlock liquidity from this concentrated equity position to fund a new business venture while preserving ownership exposure ahead of the planned liquidity event.
Securing lending against private company shares presents a specialist structuring challenge, particularly where the borrower prefers not to pledge additional assets. Many lenders active in securities-backed lending focus primarily on publicly listed equities or high-profile late-stage fintech companies with clear secondary market visibility. In this case, the client required a lender willing to consider the underlying strength of the private company on its own merits and structure a facility on a non-recourse basis without reliance on wider personal asset support.
Enness introduced a specialist lender experienced in underwriting private share-backed facilities supported by forward-looking liquidity events such as IPOs. A £9.5M structured facility was agreed at approximately 50% LTV, designed around the anticipated timing of the future liquidity event. The five-year structure aligned lender return expectations with the projected share value trajectory and incorporated flexibility should an earlier share sale occur prior to the planned IPO timeline.
This case demonstrates how structured lending against private company shares can provide liquidity solutions for entrepreneurs with concentrated equity positions ahead of future exit events. By identifying a lender capable of assessing the underlying business rather than relying solely on conventional collateral structures, Enness enabled the client to access capital for a new venture while preserving long-term participation in the anticipated IPO upside.
