Impetus gives Fat Cat a leg up

The Fat Cat Studios at Highley, near Bridgnorth certainly got the cream when it landed the first loan made in Shropshire by Impetus, the local CDFI (Community Development Funding Initiative).

CDFIs help small businesses to set up or develop and the loan has allowed this local business to diversify into a unique process of digital colour printing on unusual surfaces, from slate to car bonnets!

The Fat Cat Studios is a family business serving a wide range of markets including tourism. Owner David Cook, who has digital printing experience going back 15 years and whose daughter is a qualified graphic designer, said, “We’ll be creating exclusive slate designs in full colour, which has never been done before. If we hadn’t found Impetus and they hadn’t given us this loan, we would not have been able to move into this new business. It’s as simple as that. We couldn’t get money from the banks and although we tried every other avenue, no-one else was prepared to back us. Now, with this loan, it already looks as though the business will be expanding here and abroad and we will be taking on staff.”

Samples of the slate products can be found on www.fatcatstudios.com, but there are plans for an enhanced website soon.

Impetus is a new kind of community funding company. It is a CDFI (short for ‘Community Funding Development Institution) that have been established in the USA for some years but now the idea has spread to the UK. Set up with backing from the DTI, the CDFIs support local enterprises throughout the UK. Impetus is the CDFI for Shropshire, Worcestershire and Herefordshire.

Impetus’s Development Manager Steve Williams said, “We were delighted to be able to help the Fat Cat Studios with the development of its business. Businesses in rural and disadvantaged areas can find it hard to secure necessary funding despite having a good business case, like this one. Now we’d like to hear from other businesses in Shropshire who are having similar difficulty getting funding for their viable business ideas. Loans normally range from £1,000 to £50,000.”

For further information, please contact Steve Williams or George Mackison, Impetus, The Garden House, Queen Elizabeth Drive, Pershore, Worcestershire, WR10 1PZ. Tel: 01386 556000 or go to our web site at www.impetus-marches.co.uk.


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Notes to Editors

1. Impetus operates throughout the three counties of Shropshire, Worcestershire, and Herefordshire.

2. Community Development Finance Institutions (CDFI) provide finance and support to enterprises in disadvantaged communities. Enterprises that can be helped include small businesses that create jobs and much needed services and business starts ups as well as established businesses experiencing funding difficulties. CDFI’s achieve social objectives by helping to revive the fortunes of those living in neighbourhoods blighted by years of neglect and under-investment.

Although not conventional sources of finance like banks, building societies or venture capital funds, CDFI’s provide finance to viable enterprises and seek financial returns on their investments. In the case of Impetus, the need is broadly described as that derived from the nature of rural counties – the geographical and economic isolation (low paid jobs and limited work opportunities, higher cost of living, and poor access to services such as shops and public transport).