When the Banks Walk Away: How Branta Fixes The Broken Deals
When everyone else says "NO"
In the world of commercial finance, everyone’s keen to say "yes" to a clean, vanilla deal. A tidy set of accounts, healthy income, low gearing, and no historical bumps in the road? That’s easy money.
But real life - and real business - is rarely that neat.
We’ve just completed a refinance for a client that perfectly illustrates the kind of work we do at Branta. No names here, but it’s the kind of story that will be familiar to many entrepreneurs and property owners.
Three commercial properties. Three different ownership structures. An experienced investor trying to tidy up borrowings across them. Nothing too exotic on the surface. But scratch a little deeper and you’ll find the kind of complexity that sends most finance brokers running for the hills.
That’s where we come in.
What Went Wrong
Our client owns or part-owns three well-let commercial properties, each sitting in its own limited company. On paper, the valuations are solid, the tenants are stable, and the gearing is modest. So far, so normal.
But when the existing debt came up for renewal, everything started to unravel.
Why? Because of a tenant.
One of the tenants in the portfolio had gone into administration. A business in which our client was a shareholder and former director. Despite the insolvency being clean and professionally handled, the association triggered red flags with mainstream lenders. Suddenly, the client’s impeccable track record as a landlord didn’t seem to matter. The deals got stuck in policy. Offers were withdrawn. Phones stopped ringing.
In today’s tick-box lending environment, association with insolvency (even where there’s no wrongdoing, no disqualification, and no personal loss) can be enough to kill a deal dead.
But that’s not the end of the story.
Where Branta Steps In
We’re not a finance broker. We’re a corporate finance team that specialises in difficult, messy, and complex transactions - especially where conventional brokers or bank managers have thrown in the towel.
In this case, we took a very different approach to the refinance.
First, we listened. We didn’t jump to conclusions. We sat down with the client and mapped out a complete picture of the assets, liabilities, cashflows, and crucially, the personal position of the individual behind the companies.
Second, we engaged directly with lenders who think. That means private banks, challenger banks, and debt funds who are willing to take a bespoke view on risk, not just blindly follow a lending policy. In this case, we found a lender who recognised that the tenant’s insolvency didn’t compromise the underlying quality of the properties or the sponsor’s ability to support them.
Third, we packaged the deal properly. That meant preparing an honest but professionally-written commentary on the background and timing of the insolvency, including answers to the questions that lenders were too cautious to ask out loud such as whether there was any risk of director disqualification, personal guarantees being called, or reputational damage. There wasn’t. But proving that takes more than just filling out an application form.
More Than Just a Broker
This isn’t unusual for us.
Many of the clients we support come to us after a traditional finance route has failed. Sometimes the deal is too small for the banks to care about. Sometimes it’s too messy. Sometimes it’s just a square peg that doesn’t fit into a round hole.
We see our role as problem-solvers, not just packagers. We don’t just introduce deals, we structure, defend, and fix them.
That might mean:
- Rebuilding a deal structure around the real cashflows in play
- Engaging with lenders at Credit Committee level to address specific risk factors
- Coordinating with the borrower’s legal and accounting advisors to iron out wrinkles
- Helping prepare NAV statements or income summaries where personal guarantees are a factor
- Managing communications between multiple SPVs and ownership structures
- Ensuring fee transparency and alignment throughout
In this case, we had to do all of the above. And work across three separate borrowing entities with different shareholders, loan types, and security arrangements.
We did it efficiently, transparently, and without drama.
The Outcome
The deals are now complete.
Across the three properties, we successfully arranged new senior debt facilities on terms that aligned with the client’s objectives. Pricing was competitive, security was acceptable to the borrower, and the timeline worked.
Crucially, we also achieved something less tangible: peace of mind. Our client now knows that when things get complicated, there’s someone in their corner who won’t flinch.
The Bigger Picture
This is not an isolated example.
We’re seeing a growing number of entrepreneurs, property investors, and business owners who are being left behind by traditional finance. Deals that should be straightforward get lost in the weeds because policy has become the master, not the servant.
Sometimes it’s a historic insolvency. Sometimes it’s a bit of family drama in the shareholding. Sometimes it’s just that the deal is too small or too complicated to justify a bank’s attention.
But these are the deals that need real corporate finance skills, not just access to lender panels.
Why Branta
At Branta, we sit at the intersection of advisory, brokerage, and problem-solving.
- We speak “bank,” but we also speak “client.”
- We know how to build a deal that satisfies credit and still works in real life.
- We’re not afraid of complexity, urgency, or difficult conversations.
- And we’re not in it to burn through applications. We’re in it to close.
Whether it’s a refinance, a restructure, or a full-blown turnaround, we bring big-firm thinking to SME-sized challenges.
And that makes all the difference.
Need Help With a Deal That’s Stalled?
If you’re facing a refinance or funding challenge that’s hit a wall, we’d be happy to have a confidential conversation. Sometimes all it takes is one well-structured story, told to the right lender, to unlock the door.
