Founder-led chain · Growth debt · UK · Recession
Growth debt raised at the bottom of the credit cycle.
A nine-shop independent asked lenders for £3.2m to more than double its estate while GDP was falling.
159 customers surveyed
47 competitor customers
15-shop defensive floor
Transaction
PE / investor
Retail betting
The challenge
The proposal combined discretionary spend, a recession and a small operator competing with majors. The founder needed a case built to survive credit scrutiny.
The work
Office for National Statistics data back to 1978 inverted the consensus that gambling was simply recession-proof: over-the-counter betting was falling while machine gaming grew. Every proposed site was scored, growth rebased to 3% and economics benchmarked against the majors.
The result
The lending case named two underperforming shops, restated one result on a conservative basis and showed a viable 15-shop business on under half the funding. The company raised £3.2m when banks had stopped lending.
Engagements were won and led by Elliot Ronald and delivered by teams under his direction at Lion Strategy or its predecessor firm, Hambalt. Client confidentiality is absolute; cases are anonymised except where the work is already on the public record.