by business editor Trevor Sturgess

A £100 million fund has been launched to mark a firm’s change of name and ownership.

Absolute Invoice Finance, founded in 2000, has been bought from Cattles Invoice Finance and kept the regional office in Turkey Mill, Maidstone.

Specialist private equity firm AnaCap Financial Partners bought the business from struggling lender Cattles Plc in a £70m deal. Absolute says it is business as usual at Turkey Mill, with no change to the existing 11-strong workforce.

The new fund aims to support the growth of established, early stage and start-up businesses. Absolute is offering Kent and south east businesses an opportunity to access funding lines of between £25,000 and £2.5 million.

Absolute chief executive Doug Crawford said: “Despite recent reports suggesting an upturn in the economy, entrepreneurs are still having to battle to secure funding to grow their businesses.

“Against that backdrop, many small and medium enterprises are also experiencing delayed payments from customers and struggling to access credit insurance to protect them against the risk of bad debt.

“For start-ups, early stage businesses and even those with long and successful trading histories, that has created ongoing difficulties in maintaining healthy cash flow, let alone planning for future growth.

“With the support of AnaCap, an exceptionally strong balance sheet and a substantial new funding line from Lloyds TSB Commercial Finance, we are now an extremely well capitalised business.

"That, together with significant headroom in our working capital position, means we are heading into the market confident and with a fierce appetite to do deals.”