Henry Howard Finance has announced its retail finance team is to form a separate branch of the business to further develop and extend its financial support in the retail sector.

HH Retail Finance provides funding for clients in the shop-fitting and retail equipment market.

Headed by Sarah Freeman, the seven-strong team will specialise in providing sales-aid leasing services to the retail businesses across the UK to assist in major capital projects such as shop-fitting and security and technology equipment upgrades.

Newport-based HHF has worked with retail sector partners for many years but is now establishing the specialist retail team as a separate branch of the business in order to focus its expertise in this area, offering even higher levels of service.

The creation of HH Retail Finance, which will be based at Langstone Business Park along with other HH businesses, is part of a business-wide restructuring which followed a £25m investment by private equity firm, Cabot Square Capital last year.

The cash injection allowed HHF to increase its lending capacity and restructure into HH Vendor, HH Asset, HH Cashflow and now HH Retail Finance.

The business as a whole has seen record growth in the last 12 months, with its lending soaring by 75 per cent to more than £70m.

HHF now employs 90 staff – growth of 60 per cent in 12 months – across three offices in Newport, Bristol and Birmingham.

Set up in 1996, HHF started trading as a sales-aid leasing company supporting vendors using leasing to spread the cost of the customer’s purchase over a term of usually three or five years.

It now has a portfolio in excess of £150m which includes more than 20,000 different UK businesses.

In the last 12 months significant advances have been made in the technology used to run HHF, giving customers and partners access to leading financial products.

HowApp is a user-friendly online credit decision and deal management tool through which users can get an acceptance on a finance agreement in just '7 clicks in 20 seconds'. The necessary documents can then be generated, sent and e-signed online.

Sarah Freeman, head of HH Retail Finance, said: “Henry Howard has worked within the retail sector, providing tailored financial solutions for many years but by creating a dedicated retail branch of the business we will be able to focus our expertise in this area and provide even better levels of service.

“I am really excited to be leading this new arm of Henry Howard Finance and look forward to expanding and developing our retail finance offering.”