Can I refinance existing equipment or consolidate current business finance?

Yes. Refinancing existing equipment to release working capital and consolidating multiple business finance agreements into one are two of the most underused routes in UK SMB lending. The first turns paid-down or owned-outright equipment into cash on your balance sheet. The second simplifies servicing and often reduces blended cost of capital.

Equipment refinance (also called sale-and-leaseback) works as follows: a specialist lender pays you the current market value of equipment you own outright, takes a charge over it, and you repay over 2 to 5 years. The cash hits your account in 7 to 14 days. Typical eligible assets include CNC machines, HGVs, plant, agricultural equipment, dental and medical kit. Hospitality kitchen equipment is harder to refinance because of its weaker resale market. Specialist UK refinance lenders include Time Finance, Ultimate Finance and Aldermore.

Consolidation of multiple agreements (HP, term loan, MCA, invoice finance) into a single facility is harder to engineer in the UK because each existing lender's settlement figure differs and most have early redemption fees. The cleanest route is a debenture-secured term loan from a bank like Allica Bank or Shawbrook, used to settle existing facilities at completion. Expect a 5 to 10% reduction in blended cost on a well-structured consolidation, but only if the new facility carries materially lower headline pricing than the average of the old.

See can I refinance existing equipment to release working capital for the cash-out version, and our blended cost of capital calculator for consolidation maths.