Investec review UK 2026, asset finance to £10m, tax and professions loans, working capital

What Investec lends

The broker page lists six specialist services: fixed-term lease, hire purchase on a non-regulated basis, professions loans, minimum-term lease, standard lease and materials handling finance. Alongside the asset products it invites brokers to talk about corporation tax, VAT, commercial and professions loans. Deals run from small ticket to middle ticket, capped at £10m, and the private companies page says the team has more than 15 years of experience funding SMEs at those sizes. Structures can include VAT deferral on hire purchase for hard assets, stage payments, seasonal payments and foreign exchange where the asset is bought abroad.

Renewable energy is a named line. Investec says it funds biomass, solar panel technology, onshore wind and other sustainable energy assets, and its published Norman's Farm case is a £1.8m refinance of an anaerobic digestion plant, introduced by MAF Finance Group and structured so the family repays over 9 years. Four sister teams sit beside the core book: Mann Island has financed cars, vans, motorhomes, pick-ups and motorbikes since 1991, Quantum Funding has lent over £150m to 5,000 SMEs through leases and hire purchase, CF Corporate provides sales-aid leasing, and a wholesale desk offers block discounting and receivables finance to other asset finance lenders.

Working capital is a different door. The page describes invoice financing, tailored facilities for more involved needs and a digital platform called Intelligent Cashflow that plugs into a client's accounting software, all overseen by a relationship manager with a limited number of clients. Above that sits the asset-based and cashflow lending team, which writes revolvers against receivables, inventory, plant and machinery and property, adds term loans on top, reaches about £60m on a bilateral basis and works from offices in London and Amsterdam across the UK, Irish and Benelux markets. An insurance premium finance team, listed on the Norman's Farm page, spreads a client's premiums over monthly instalments.

Who Investec lends to

Asset finance goes to SMEs, corporates and professional practices in the UK, reached through its partnerships with specialist commercial finance brokers. Sectors named across the pages include manufacturing, engineering, textiles, transport and logistics and business-to-business services, with agriculture and energy represented by the anaerobic digestion refinance. The broker page puts the lending record at more than £5.7bn to over 185,000 SMEs.

Working capital has three published tests. A client operates in a business-to-business environment, turns over £1m or more, and has cashflow needs that vary through the trading cycle. The wider private companies bank describes itself as relationship banking for businesses turning over £25m and above, and the lending services form asks for revenue over £1m. Asset-based lending is aimed at private equity backed and owner-managed businesses generating roughly £3m of EBITDA.

The footer on every asset finance page states that Investec Asset Finance plc is authorised and regulated by the Financial Conduct Authority for credit-related regulated activities, including hiring, and gives its registered number as 2179313. The Register can be searched at register.fca.org.uk. A limited company borrowing for its business is outside consumer credit rules, which is why the hire purchase line is described as non-regulated.

How an application runs

Brokers submit through the Broker Portal, which the intermediary page says takes proposals, creates settlements, upgrades quotations and accepts unlimited supporting documents, or by linking their own software through EDI. Depending on size and complexity an underwriting decision arrives in an average of two and a half hours, with same-day payout available. Proposals up to £25,000 go straight to the auto-decisioning engine, where a decision may come back instantly. Each broker has a dedicated relationship manager and a support team, and an app calculates repayments by asset type, cost, term and rate.

Larger or unusual cases are looked at in person. On the £1.8m Norman's Farm refinance the head of sustainable energy finance visited the site with the broker, instructed Fisher German to verify the plant's electricity income, then issued an acceptance and drafted the security package around a separate farm remortgage. The private companies page describes online access to statements once an agreement is live and a single team handling every stage of a deal.

Through us the route is the same one Investec built for brokers. A named case handler reads the figures against Investec and every other panel lender writing that product, then submits the proposal in the form the portal asks for. We arrange; Investec makes the decision. Enquiring does not affect your credit score.

Investec on our panel

At September 2026 we held 12 live Investec products. The 10 business loans carry facility sizes of £25,001 at the low end and £500,000 at the top over terms of 12 months at the low end and 5 years at the top; the 1 asset finance product runs £2,000 at the low end and £5m at the top on terms of 1 month at the low end and 7 years at the top; and the 1 invoice finance product covers £200,000 at the low end and £10m at the top over 3 months at the low end and 12 months at the top. Each span is read from our own pull for that category alone, describes the panel on that date rather than any offer, and shifts whenever products are added or removed.

For context, at September 2026 we counted 25 lender brands on the panel offering VAT deferral on an asset deal, 31 funding green energy assets, 31 funding factory plant and machinery, and 17 writing invoice finance for a director who is not a homeowner. Those are counts of brands holding at least one live product, not a reading of Investec's own criteria.