02/06/2026
Scaffolding firm 👍
Needs £250k sharpish 🤔
Customer management accounts show a 10% jump in gross profit margin 👀
On the face of it, that’s the sort of thing that makes credit underwriters sit back and raise an eyebrow 🤨
A bit too tidy. A bit too good to be true. A bit convenient. And in fairness - it often is.
But this is where experience matters.
Rather than taking the numbers at face value, Nimish dug a level deeper and spent time understanding how the business actually works. Because scaffolding isn’t a smooth, linear model.
His client undertakes large commercial contracts for developers. At the start of a project, costs are heavy - planning, labour, transport, all front-loaded. At the end, you see another spike - dismantling, again labour-driven, transport.
But in between? You’ve got equipment up, rental income coming in steadily, and relatively low ongoing cost. So depending on when you take the snapshot, margins can look wildly different - particularly on larger, longer-duration projects. What looked like a sudden jump in gross profit margin was really just timing.
Once that story was properly understood and translated to the underwriter the deal started to make sense.
Outcome:
→ £250,000 loan
→ Personal guarantee only
→ 3-year term
→ Delivered inside 10 days
Same business. Same numbers. Better understanding.
