Glazing Vision

Introduction

Glazing Vision is the world’s largest manufacturer of high-end bespoke glass rooflights.

With just six weeks between initial enquiry and drawdown, we helped the Norfolk-based business and their introducer to remortgage their premises and unlock the finance they needed to fund their international expansion.

Who are Glazing Vision?

Based in Norfolk, Glazing Vision is the world’s largest manufacturer of high-end bespoke glass rooflights. It has been in business for over 25 years and now employs over 100 people, primarily in its 65,000ft2 factory.

It produces a range of stock products as well as custom-built rooflights to order. “What sets us apart,” explained Glazing Vision’s Managing Director, Jon Shooter, “is that we work with the architects as early as possible on their design solutions to help them find the right specification of glass or materials to bring their project to fruition.”

“Often then we become the ‘wow’ factor of the project.”

Having seen significant international growth in recent years, it now distributes its products across Europe, Australia and the United States through a variety of distribution partners.

How Allica Bank helped

The company was looking for funding to help support its ambitious international growth plans, so it decided to remortgage its premises.

It spoke to several different banks, however, in the midst of the covid pandemic, the business struggled to find one that could help them. Having spent significant time looking for a suitable partner, they were eventually introduced to Allica Bank.

“Lots of banks were reluctant to secure funding for us,” Jon explained. “Whereas Allica Bank said ‘we want to help, we want to make this deal happen.’”

“We worked closely with a dedicated local business relationship manager who took the time to understand us and our ambitions for the business. Alternative banks spoke a good game, however they were not supported by their credit departments. Our local business relationship manager went the extra mile to assist in making the deal happen.”

In the end, the remortgage deal was completed in just six weeks, from initial enquiry through to drawdown, and against the backdrop of the global pandemic.

Glazing Vision’s relationship manager at Allica Bank, Jonathan Prince, commented

“Established and thriving businesses like Glazing Vision have been underserved by the market for a while, but 2020 has made this funding gap even more acute. The current focus for many lenders has understandably been on providing support to those businesses most at risk from the impact of Covid-19, but this has led to a sharp fall in funding for businesses outside of these schemes.

“At Allica, we’ve built a new type of bank that is committed to ensuring these companies can get access to the funding they need.”

What’s next for Glazing Vision?

Having quickly been able to secure the funding they needed, Glazing Vision has been able to turn its attention to building its international distribution network.

“I’ve been with the company 16 years and we’ve been through this process a number of times but never actually managed to find the right deal,” Jon said. “So I’m glad now we’ve been able to get that deal we can start looking again at investing in the company and looking at turning my vision into a reality.”