Lupa Foods Ltd

Case study
Article tags:
  • Invoice Discounting
  • Inventory Finance
  • Cashflow Loan

Lupa Foods (then Donatantonio) started as a Mediterranean retail outlet in central London, catering for Britain’s growing Italian population. Over the years, the company established itself with well invested infrastructure in terms of its warehousing, logistics and technical capability.

The Challenge

The company realised the potential for even further growth, both in its existing and prospective customer base and in late 2007, sought additional funding to secure a buy-in, management buy-out (BIMBO) and enable further expansion.

In 2018, the company saw an opportunity to acquire a rival business, ‘COMPLEAT Food Network’ to become Lupa Foods Ltd and broaden their footprint in the market. A boost in their existing facility was required in order to make the purchase happen.

The Solution

Following the restructure in 2007, ABN AMRO Commercial Finance was able to provide Lupa Foods with invoice discounting, which created the additional funding to accelerate their growth plans. This was combined with Inventory Finance and a Cashflow Loan. Since then Lupa Foods have had a strong partnership with ABN AMRO, who have supported the company’s growth ambitions with a flexible funding solution through even the most challenging economic downturns. More recently, ABN AMRO increased the existing funding to a £9.4m funding line to support the acquisition of COMPLEAT Food Network. The team at ABN AMRO worked in record time which was necessary for the sale to complete and the venture will help to increase Lupa Food’s market share and expand their product offering.

Manish Mandavia, Financial Director at Lupa Foods said, 

There was a lot of time pressure for the acquisition and the team at ABN AMRO pulled out all the stops to get everything done in time. Throughout the whole process we felt there was a real sense of co-operation and willingness to go the extra mile.

The Result

Over the years, Receivables funding has enabled Lupa Foods to free up cash to fund several initiatives that have led to continuing strong growth. The funding solution has also protected the business against customers pushing payment terms to the limit of 90 days, securing a positive cashflow. 

Manish says:

I’ve found the team at ABN AMRO to be very helpful and flexible around our commercial needs, seeing them more as partners than financiers. They are a productive team and deliver on what they promise to support us.