The Loan That Was Supposed to Help Her Bounce Back — Didn’t
I built a marketing business on relationships. Small businesses trusted me to help them get in front of clients, and I was good at it. When Covid hit and everything stopped, the bounce back loan felt like breathing room. But by the time trading returned, so did the repayment — and the clients I was counting on weren’t spending the way they used to.
Marketing spend is always the first thing businesses cut when money gets tight. I understood that — it was my clients doing the cutting. The irony wasn’t lost on me. My reputation was strong and my network was solid, but reputation doesn’t pay a bounce back loan. The monthly repayment was the one fixed cost I hadn’t been able to plan around, and it was getting harder to meet.
I didn’t want to close. That’s what people assumed I was heading for — the accountant mentioned winding the company up, and it was starting to feel like the only conversation anyone wanted to have. But closing felt like giving up on something I’d spent years building. The SME sector knew who I was. Walking away from that wasn’t something I was ready to do.
What I needed wasn’t an exit route. I needed someone to look at whether there was another way through.
The Outcome in brief
Adviser: Priti Shah · Referred by Kanbir Solutions (Accountants)
What Diana feared most was being pushed into closing something she had spent years building. She had the clients, the reputation, and the network — the loan repayment was the one thing threatening to take it from her. When the arrangement was confirmed and the repayment dropped to under £20 a month, the relief wasn’t just financial: it was the knowledge that her business was still hers to run. She could carry on serving the clients who had trusted her through Covid and beyond.
Is your business viable — but a single debt making it feel impossible?
A bounce back loan or other business debt doesn’t have to mean the end of the company. Talk to us about what’s possible before any decisions are made.
The work behind the outcome
The business continued to trade. We negotiated directly with the bank’s appointed debt collection agents — after making clear to the bank that the alternative was a liquidation it would need to fund, with little prospect of meaningful recovery from an asset-light business — and secured a repayment plan of under £20 per month with all interest stopped. The business carries no new debt and Diana continues to serve her clients.
When Diana came to us, the position was straightforward in structure but required careful handling. The bounce back loan was the company’s only significant creditor. The business itself remained viable — it had clients, a market presence, and no other debt. The question was whether the BBL obligation could be restructured without closing the company.
We reviewed the financials and identified the core issue: the monthly repayment, not the underlying business, was creating the cash flow pressure. The business had sufficient income to trade and to meet a substantially reduced commitment, but not the standard BBL repayment schedule.
We approached the bank with a structured position. The bank’s options were limited: the company could not sustain the current repayment schedule, and if it closed, any liquidation would require creditors — in this case the bank — to fund the process, with little prospect of meaningful recovery against an asset-light marketing business. A negotiated repayment plan preserved the bank’s recovery position and kept a going concern in operation. The bank passed the matter to their appointed debt collection agents, as we had anticipated. We negotiated directly with those agents and secured a reduced repayment plan at under £20 per month, with interest frozen from the date of the arrangement.
The company incurs no new debt. Diana continues to operate, serves her existing clients, and has the stability to grow her network without the BBL repayment constraining every trading decision.
The business continued to trade. We negotiated directly with the bank’s appointed debt collection agents — after making clear to the bank that the alternative was a liquidation it would need to fund, with little prospect of meaningful recovery from an asset-light business — and secured a repayment plan of under £20 per month with all interest stopped. The business carries no new debt and Diana continues to serve her clients.