Friends First raises £55m to expand business

Friends First Finance, the finance arm of Friends First, has raised up to €55 million to fund the development of its motor finance business.

The funding comes from a number of Irish and other European banks including AIB Capital Markets, Irish Intercontinental, NIB, BNP Paribas, Den Danske, WestLB, Staal, BCI and Banca Monte dei Paschi di Siena.

With new car sales up 41 per cent in the first six months of this year, Friends First Finance intends to grow its business and aims to be a substantial force in the motor finance market.

Established in Ireland in 1997, Friends First Finance initially focused on high-margin niche markets. Since then it has expanded into mainstream leasing and hire-purchase markets. It employs 500 people in Ireland and has offices in Dublin, Waterford, Galway, Cork and Limerick.

The Irish Friends First group's total assets exceed £3.5 billion (€4.44 billion).

Friends First is part of the large European Eureko Group, currently the fifth largest insurance group in Europe, with a total asset base of €196 billion and over 72,000 employees in 15 countries.

Mr Adrian Hegarty, managing director of Friends First, said yesterday: "The banking market's response to Friends First Finance has been so positive that the syndication was over-subscribed. Due to the success of the transaction, we now have the potential to access €65 million."