Business Bridging Finance: Refinancing a Corporate Facility the Bank Won't Renew

Your revolving credit or term loan is coming due. The relationship manager has gone quiet, a covenant test is close to failing, or credit has already said it will not renew. The company still owns property that is unencumbered or only lightly geared, and the repayment date will not move.

That is refinance under a deadline, not a working-capital conversation. Banks score income, covenants and internal limits. A private lender scores the asset and the exit.

Finance directors in Singapore and the United Kingdom hit the same wall: the bank's clock. Business bridging finance is the short facility that sits against the property you already own until a sale, a new term loan or equity takes it out.

Why the bank will not simply roll the facility

A non-renewal is rarely a shock if you reread the last two review letters. Sector caps, a missed interest-cover test or a change in the bank's property appetite can kill a rollover even when interest has been paid on time.

The Bank of England Bank Rate moves the cost of the bank's own funding. It does not write your renewal. Concentration limits and a shift in appetite do. In Singapore, the TDSR framework governs income-based property loans to individuals. Corporate facilities sit on different paper, with the same practical result: if the model rejects this year's numbers, the line is not extended.

This is not a 28-day auction completion in the UK, and it is not a GCB purchase or an ABSD calculation in Singapore. You already own the asset. The bank's clock is what changed.

How business bridging finance is underwritten

Our main questions are different. We ask whether the property supports the loan at a conservative LTV, and whether you can leave inside the tenor.

Indicative range: $1M – $100M in Singapore / £1M – £100M in the UK, LTV up to 70% and 75% respectively, term 3–24 months. A term sheet is with you within 24 hours. All of it is subject to valuation and due diligence.

Rikvin Capital is a direct private lender operating in Singapore and the UK, lending to corporate borrowers and, in Singapore, to accredited investors. We are not a bank, and we are not bound by TDSR. Interest can be rolled up so the facility does not add a monthly cash call while you arrange the exit.

If the outgoing bank already holds a first charge, the bridge usually repays that bank on day one so we can sit in its place. Title, a current valuation and a clean corporate borrower (often the SPV that owns the property) are the papers that actually move the file.

Offices the company occupies often make the cleanest security: see office bridging loans in Singapore. In Britain the same idea is commercial bridging against trading or investment property.

When a bridge is the right tool, and when it is not

Use the bridge when the bank's date is measured in weeks or a few months and the property can take a first charge. You also need to be able to name the sale, term-out or equity that repays us inside 3–24 months. That is what refinancing bridging loans are for.

Skip it if you need a seven-year amortising loan, if the asset will not cover the outgoing bank plus our principal, or if the exit is a hope. The main risk is the clock. You still have to repay on time, and the price is higher than a cleared bank line.

Related: an £18.8 million facility secured against a West London hotel. Different asset, same logic: the property carried the facility.

Business bridging finance is a patch. It is not a capital structure. If you cannot see the exit, do not take the money.