Working capital for the businesses behind the property.
Property borrowers rarely operate a property in isolation. There is usually a trading company alongside it: a contracting arm, an operating business, a supply chain. When that company needs liquidity, we arrange it, whole of market, alongside your property facilities rather than sending you elsewhere.
By Dominic Whitecross, Co-Founder, HyLend. Last reviewed July 2026.
This is deliberately scoped. We are a property and structured finance broker first, and this page exists because the same clients repeatedly need working capital in their trading entities. It is not a small-business loan desk, and if a generic unsecured business loan is all you need, a specialist in that market will serve you better. Where it fits is when working capital sits next to a property or development relationship we are already arranging.
Invoice finance
Invoice finance advances cash against unpaid sales invoices, so a business is paid most of an invoice's value now rather than waiting the 30 to 90 days a commercial customer typically takes. The lender advances a proportion of each approved invoice, commonly up to around 85 to 90 percent of value, and releases the balance less its fee once the customer settles.
Invoice discounting keeps your sales ledger and collections in your own hands and is usually confidential, so your customers need not know the facility exists. Factoring hands collections to the lender and is usually disclosed. Discounting suits a business with its own credit-control function; factoring suits one that would rather outsource it. The right choice turns on how your ledger is run, not on headline cost.
It works where there is a book of creditworthy commercial customers and a real gap between delivering work and being paid, which describes a great many contracting and trading companies in a property group.
Trade finance
Trade finance funds the gap between paying a supplier and being paid by your customer. It covers import and export transactions, purchase-order and stock funding, and instruments such as letters of credit, letting a confirmed order be fulfilled without tying up working capital in materials or stock.
For a developer procuring materials at scale, or a trading business fulfilling large orders, it keeps a live opportunity moving when the cash to fund it would otherwise be locked in the supply chain. It is arranged around the specific transaction and its counterparties, not offered as a standing line.
Revolving working-capital lines
Where the need is ongoing rather than transaction-by-transaction, a revolving facility gives a business a flexible line it can draw and repay as cashflow moves through the month, an alternative to relying on a clearing-bank overdraft that can be withdrawn at short notice. Sized to the business's actual cash cycle, it smooths the timing mismatch between outgoings and income.
How we work on working capital
It sits alongside the property, not instead of it. We arrange the working-capital line separately from and in parallel with any property or development debt, so each is structured on its own merits and neither compromises the other.
Whole of market. Invoice, trade and working-capital lenders are a different panel from property lenders, and appetite varies sharply by sector and customer profile. We place with the funder that actually fits the ledger in front of us.
We will tell you if we are not the right home for it. A purely unsecured, standalone small-business loan with no property or group relationship is not what this desk is for, and we will say so rather than force a poor fit.
Facilities from £100k, for trading companies within the UK, arranged as a credit broker across the whole of market.
Where property secures the facility, the valuation still decides it
Not every working capital facility is secured on property, but where a charge over premises supports the borrowing, the same rules apply: the lender advances a percentage of whichever valuation figure it chooses to use, and on commercial security that is often a restricted marketing period figure rather than market value.
If you are raising against a building you trade from, it is worth knowing whether it will be valued as an investment, on vacant possession, or as an operating entity, because the three produce genuinely different numbers. The full valuations guide →
This is the fast one
Invoice finance and working capital facilities are the quickest products we arrange, precisely because there is usually no property valuation in the way. A straightforward invoice finance facility can be live in five to ten working days, and in some cases sooner where the debtor book is clean and the accounting data can be shared directly.
Where a facility is secured on property, the timeline reverts to property timescales and the valuation becomes the constraint again. The honest bridging timeline →
Working Capital FAQs
What is invoice finance?
Invoice finance advances cash against unpaid sales invoices, so a business receives most of an invoice's value immediately rather than waiting 30 to 90 days for the customer to pay. The lender advances a proportion of the invoice, commonly up to around 85 to 90 percent of approved invoice value, and releases the balance less its fee once the customer settles. It suits trading companies with a book of creditworthy commercial customers and a cash gap between delivering work and being paid.
What is the difference between factoring and invoice discounting?
Both advance cash against invoices. With factoring the lender also manages collections and the arrangement is usually disclosed to your customers. With invoice discounting you keep control of your own sales ledger and collections, and the facility is typically confidential, so customers need not know it is in place. Discounting suits businesses with their own credit-control function; factoring suits those who would rather outsource it.
What is trade finance?
Trade finance funds the gap between paying a supplier for goods and being paid by your own customer. It covers import and export transactions, purchase-order and stock funding, and instruments such as letters of credit. For a trading business or a developer procuring materials at scale, it lets a confirmed order be fulfilled without tying up working capital in stock.
Can I arrange working capital alongside a property facility?
Yes, and it is common. The same borrower group often needs both a property facility and liquidity in its trading company, for example a developer whose contracting arm needs invoice finance, or a portfolio landlord with an operating business alongside the property. We arrange the working-capital line whole of market, separately from and alongside the property debt, so each is structured on its own merits.
How quickly can working capital or invoice finance be arranged?
Faster than any property secured facility. A straightforward invoice finance line can be live in five to ten working days, and sometimes sooner where the debtor book is clean and accounting data can be shared directly with the funder, because there is no property valuation in the way. Where a facility is secured on property instead, the timeline reverts to ordinary property timescales and the valuation becomes the constraint.