History of Scaffold Finance – Leasing insights

History of Scaffold Finance

Throughout this blog I’m going to give you a little bit of history on us here at Scaffold Finance. Here is our journey.

Scaffold Finance is a trading name of First Leasing UK Limited, (AKA First Group). This company was founded in 2002 by Paul Connell.

Paul Connell acted as a leasing broker up until the time he sold the business to Jeremy Hall in November 2020. Over the years Paul built his team up to ten people with offices in Kent. The company originated over 1,200 leasing customers for a wide range of equipment. These clients and now serviced by WestWon, a sister company to First Leasing UK.

Jeremy and the team at WestWon acquired First Leasing for their client base. Jeremy noted, “First Leasing was in the same sector as us, namely SME clients looking to lease equipment from £5,000 to £100,000 in value. We know it is much easier to develop a relationship with a company who has leased from us in the past. The fact we know what, where and when a client has financed equipment is valuable information.”

It did mean that the business of First Leasing was to become dormant. However, there was still value in the company having a long track record in leasing, a VAT number, bank account and existing relationships with funders.

Our Experience

Moving on, Carl Redding who has worked with Jeremy since 2013 was keen to run his own scaffolding leasing company. Carl had a couple of years out from WestWon to expand his knowledge. During this time, he worked for another large UK based leasing company before becoming a shareholder and director of First Leasing.

In 2021, Scaffold Finance was founded bringing together many scaffolding clients from Carl’s time working in the sector.

Carl pointed out, “We have a clear mission and vision for the future knowing exactly who we wish to deal with. Scaffolding companies are like leasing companies in some respects, they quote, set up a site, rent out equipment for a period of time then strike the site. Scaffolding companies are capital intensive, they need to finance kit and trucks. Typically, the bigger and more successful the company, the greater the need for lease finance.”

Scaffold Finance now has all the elements it needs to be a truly successful leasing and asset finance company. It has the history and infrastructure of a business trading for nearly 20 years. And, as a bonus, the support of a large leasing brokerage and specialist knowledge of the scaffolding sector.

We look forward to welcoming you on what will be an exciting journey for the next 20 years.