Hello, it's Anthony Chadwick for the webinar vet welcoming you to another episode of Vet Chat, the UK's number one veterinary podcast. Really fortunate today to have Peter Hirst on the line with me, who is, who works at White Oak, which is a finance company, and we're gonna be talking about finance. I think there's lots of times when we do need some help, with cash flow or with buying a piece of equipment.

And I thought it'd be really interesting just to see where we are at the moment with higher interest rates and so on, but hopefully starting to come down. All the different ways that, finance companies can help us and banks and so on with, setting up businesses, getting equipment so that we can practise the best possible veterinary medicine. So Peter, it's, Great to have you on the call, er, perhaps before we start and dive into sort of case studies and things, you could tell us a little bit about White Oak, it's a name I know that possibly isn't very familiar to, to vets, er, partly cos you've had a name change.

And then also maybe a little bit about yourself as well. Sure, sure, sure. So the actual business itself was started back in 1986 by a company called Lease Direct Finance, White Oak, you just take us over probably about 2-3 years ago.

Their main head office is in San Francisco, and we are the UK based office for White Oak. They are what we class as a hybrid lender in that we lend our own money. But we also lend, business partners money as well, so like broker finance as well, so we help, help on that side of things.

We cover all aspects of finance, be it equipment finance, be it leasing finance for IT, vehicles, but we, where we differ is that we help a lot more on the loan side of things, on the VAT, the tax, working capital, practise acquisitions, all those types of things, myself personally. I've been with the company for 22.5 years, I've seen all aspects of lending, I've been through.

Recessions here, there and everywhere, and as you said, hopefully in the near future the rates might be coming down, fingers crossed, but that's, that's what we're here to do, what we try to attain through Whiteoak is get the best possible deal that we can for the client. And as I said, that might be through our own lending, but it might be through a a lending partner, but Paramount, let me get this across, is that the client comes first and to make them happy. And the way I've looked at it for the 22.5 years is I've got a happy client, he comes back and he keeps on coming back and recommending as well.

Exactly, customer is, I know we, it sounds a bit cheesy, but customer is king. And basically you look after them, they look after you. The best form of advertising I've ever found is referrals.

I don't actually do what we class as cold calling or anything like that. All my clients come through recommendations. From people that have worked with me for many, many years, be it solicitors, barristers, KCs.

Vets, accountants and so forth, they've all come through, oh, you best give Pete Urs a call, he'll help you out, that's, that's how it works basically. Yeah, and I think I remember using you to to help me with a, I think it was a, it was a tax return, came in in the January, it it was a bit bigger than I thought it might be and I just needed a bit of help, but at that time it was I think better known as LDF rather than at least direct financing, so that was how I remembered it. Luckily I've not had to .

Use you since, since I've had webinar vet, that was when I had the, the practise, but there's a lot of change within the industry. I think it'd be really fascinating maybe to go over those different sort of case studies. Obviously maybe first starting with the leasing, very much webinar that we're encouraging people to regenerate in a more environmentally friendly way.

So I know green, cars are becoming more common, the electric car. Is that something that you're seeing within your business as well, cos I think there's also been some tax breaks that I think are coming towards an end, aren't they? Totally, yeah.

So what we usually do there is when the clients obviously so we can either source a vehicle for them, but usually 9 times out of the 10, the clients actually source a vehicle. All we need is the invoice or the actual remit from the garage. They send that over to us from the actual client, we just usually need the latest set of accounts and business bank statements, and that's it basically.

We range from 6 months through to 5 years or even in some cases 7 years in regards to the actual lend depending upon the actual client's pocket and how quick they want to repay back the actual facility. But yeah, definitely. I've seen a lot of those increase, as you said, they've got the tax breaks and so forth.

We're here to help and utilise those for the best of their, you know, their ability really. I think the electric car's interesting because, you know, from a holistic perspective, you can get an electric car, but then obviously if you're charging it up from your house and your house doesn't have sustainable energy, then of course it can be very expensive to do it that way. You're also probably doing it, you know, using gas and oil indirectly anyway, so it kind of misses the point of the electric car.

Unless it's just you've bought it cos it's the cheaper option or just the tax break to it, so. Would you look at it in a more holistic way and say, well, the practise is wanting to, for example, put a charger up, they want to have solar panels on their roof, and maybe the the vet in charge wants to put solar panels at home. Because then the charging of the car is coming from the sun rather than from, you know, gas and oil indirectly.

So if you've seen sort of cases of that where people are looking at it in a holistic way, obviously having a charger put up at a place of work or at their home and, you know, maybe putting solar panels on the roof as well. Yeah, I think if the umbrella, where, wherever the solar panels are located, if it comes under the guise or the actual practise, it doesn't really matter where it's located, and we do actually fund solar panel panels as well. So we can help going down that route, for sure I know that, but yeah, I mean from, from that perspective.

As, as opposed, I think we, we spoke of are fair is that the banks would have certain boxes you've got to tick, and if you don't tick those boxes, got no chance. With ourselves, we'll look at the full story in regards to how the client's gonna do it, how they're gonna fund it, how it's gonna save them money, and also they're being proactive, you can, you actually see that they know what they're talking about, because some, some people come out with like an idea. And then it just philtres off to nothing, but if they're actually, cos you see they've done the research in regards to what they want to do, and it makes us more comfortable in the in the lend, so to speak, because they, they've actually done the research, we say, well, you know, they're they're screwed on, they've got their their heads screwed on, so therefore we want to lend to these type of people because we know they're gonna go places and it's not just like a a fibre night, they're going to keep on going places, so, and we want to be in that on that, you know, that journey with them.

We, we've just had, last week our veterinary green discussion forum, which I organised at a nature reserve for the last 3 years. I'm very much bringing vets and industry together to say how can we move quicker in this, you know, this green revolution, because we're not moving quickly enough and as vets we're not at the centre of it, we're not leading it as we should. So, one of my, sort of things is to encourage 300 practicers to put solar on the roof, because not only is it good for the planet, but now, of course, I mean I've had solar for 15 years, it's giving me energy security, it's given me probably a 20% return on my investment.

I mean, I'm sure even LDF, or sorry, White Oak, can't even give you 20% on putting your money in the bank somewhere, can you? Exactly. So it's certainly something we'd definitely look into, but.

That like I say, that again that that's not new to me, but that's something I definitely want to get involved because it's quite honest with you, we're thinking about our kids, and our grandkids, it's not about us. I mean, I'm I'm getting on with age, but at the end of the day I'm thinking more and more about my children and their children, and that's at the end of the day, that's why we go green, that's why we have solar panels, because we want a future for our kids. Yeah, that's totally something we want to get involved in, always.

So, that's obviously the green finance, so it's definitely something that we can look at. Just looking from the perspective of leasing maybe equipment like . X-ray machines or computers, how does, how does that work?

How do you, how do you approach that with veterinary practises? I know from my own experience with the vets I've dealt with the equestrian side of things, it's like a lot of people feel as if that's a specialised marketplace, but what we do, we actually find the actual product that they're looking to purchase. Again, it's the same in the same guise in that they're having a an invoice from a particular supplier and in some case it can be a foreign one.

So we can be talking euros as well, because not all the actual equipment UK based, so therefore I know even from, I know it's off, off tangent, but like coffee machines from Italy and all those types of things we lease those types of things as well. So again we can incorporate the the veterinarian side of things in regards to specialise because it's not the stuff you can get off the shelf in in some cases, but we'll actually find the product. They again, they had a either a website address to show us that website address and we do the research, and what they're looking to purchase, and we can help on that side.

Again, it'd be just bank statements, accounts, and that's really it, and the term they want to actually lease the product for. Who knows, maybe even, even coffee machines, because we all love a nice cup of coffee, especially if we're on the go, we need a bit of caffeine infusion, it it's, it's never a bad thing, is it Peter? No, not at 10 o'clock at night when we're still working, no it's not we're waiting for that caesarean section to come in, so we need to stay awake.

Exactly that, exactly that. But yeah, cos I think also from the perspective of, you know, some of these machines now are very expensive, and actually we try and do it on our own cash, that can really affect cash flow because you can have a quiet month and suddenly you're struggling, so actually leasing over a 3 to 5 year period, it gives you that certainty of knowing what that machine is gonna cost you each month and let's say it costs you 1000 £2000. You then know that to make that machine profitable, you have to do so many radiographs or whatever, so it it it makes it a lot more.

Easy to sort of plan for things, doesn't it? Sure, well it's it's always been the case from the last 2 years, it's unsecured fixed rate funding, so you know where you are every month in regards to what's coming out of your bank, on the, be it on a direct debit or or standing order or whatever the case may be. But you know where you are.

I'd always say if you have that. Should always keep that for a rainy day because we've both been through recession. We, we didn't see those companies in some cases and then a lot of people, you know, just didn't make it because obviously they didn't plan and knew where they were going basically, but from Mao's perspective, we'd always go down the actual fixed rate.

Monthly repayments and also speaking to your accountants in regards to your tax and and what you can save on that side of things from a leasing perspective it's a lot better than just using cold hard cash. But yeah, so the fixed rate, as you say, is most of your deals will be fixed rate deals because that gives certainty, doesn't it really? Absolutely, totally, and in some cases in the last few years, I don't know if you remember what you would do but it's what we're sitting at now base is 5.25%.

What was it 2 or 3 years ago, 0.5, so the remains of, you know what I mean, if we, if you fixed the race back then you'd be in a lot more a happy position than you are right now but hopefully with. The election coming through, there's there's talk of rates coming down and and so forth, we'll just have to wait and see.

Yeah, yeah. So obviously they, you know, equipment leases, I mean if things do go wrong, you've got the car, you've got the X-ray machine that you can take back, but obviously when we look at things like. VAT loans or tax loans, how are they, you know, secured or unsecured, can you just explain to us how, you know, if I was coming to you and saying I've got a 30,000 pounds tax bill.

Can't quite manage it at the moment. I want to try and you know, spread that out. Is that spread out over 6 to 12 months, and you know what, what sort of guarantees do I have to give if I was going to take a loan like that from you?

Absolutely, so the only time you'd be asked for a guarantee is if you're a limited or an LLP. That's the only time you'll be asked for an actual what we call a personal guarantee. From that perspective is we'd only ask for the amount.

So if it's 30K loan, that PG is just for 30K, but there's never ever a charge put on your property. All, all we're saying to you is that we, you're gonna, you're gonna guarantee the 30K, you're gonna repay us back that 30K. No charges are put on your property, and that's only a PGs only requested on them for a limited liability company or an LLP, not for a partnership or anything of that nature, so that that that's very, very clear and that's it, cos what we do is that we'll analyse your accounts, your bank statements.

And affordability basically, so we can range from 6 months, through to 12 months for tax for VAT, we've got 3 months. But in essence it's like a 4 month, facility because we can do like what classed as a 03, so we've got nothing to pay for the first month and then they got 3 payments thereafter. But they get the full amount, we can either pay the HMRC directly for them.

Or what we like to do is just pay you directly because you're in control. You know exactly where you are. In times past, I've I've had so many instances whereby we paid the HMRC, they've lost it, they've got your reference number, and people are getting this, that and the other, so 9 times out of 10 we'll always try and pay the clients that are they're in full control.

Yeah, and obviously, you know, thankfully, probably only one occasion I had to do that in my career. Is that something that you see quite commonly, is that a common thing that you are doing, because in a sense it shows. Something's gone wrong in the business if you can't pay the tax or you can't pay the VAT, but obviously we've gone, as you say, gone through recessions.

We've had the pandemic and so on. Sure. Did you find that that was quite a common thing that you were lending on in the last 3 or 4 years?

It was about, it was about the cash flow forecast side of things. I have multi-legal 500 teams that are multi-billion pound turnout that utilise my facility. They've got plenty of cash in the bank.

It's a cash flow tool. They know exactly where they are every month. And they keep that money in their accounts and thank God that their savings or the, the bank is starting to put money on top of their, their money that they're keeping, keeping in that their banks, but it's, it's never a case of, you know, you're hard up, you've got to, we've got to pay your tax for you, we've got to pay you for you.

Never ever is that the case, and probably about 90% of the people that use my VAT or tax facility will dip in now and again. They, they, they, they don't do it every quarter or they don't do it every 6 months. They'll do, use it now and again, but as I said, a lot of them just use it for a cash flow forecast in regards to they know where they are on a fixed rate basis, fixed monthly payment every month.

But long gone is a stigma whereby, oh, you can't pay your VAT, you can't pay your tax. It's a cash rate, it's actually a smart way of, utilising your money. Yeah, because you know where you are.

Yeah, sure. Moving on, maybe to those larger loans that we, we take out, you know, when I . I wanted to move my practise up the road in into sort of 20 unfortunately 2007, 2008, and I bought two buildings with one of the banks, I won't mention their name, and I think it was Christmas Eve, I got a phone call from them because they they'd arranged to give me money, obviously to equip the practise.

And then the, the, there was this thing called the subprime mortgage thing that happened in 2008. I'm sure you remember Peter. I'm in America at the moment and it sort of came from America and suddenly the bank said, oh we're, we're only going to lend you half the money, so you know, I had to scrabble around and I managed to still set up the practise and so on.

But obviously, if you're trying to set up a practise, which is happening now, you know, we've got quite a lot of young vets who want to have that entrepreneurial spirit once you're open their own practise, don't have a lot of money in the bank. They may, rent a building, but they may also want to buy a building, they then need to, you know, obviously convert it and equip it. This can be a lot of money.

Yeah Would you be at the view, you know, with somebody that's perhaps, you know, in their early 30s trying to do that, it might be half a million pounds that you want, they want to borrow. So it's a, you know, it's a lot of money. There might be a commercial mortgage as part of that, but there'll also be a, a kind of chunk of money that you're using to actually equip the practise.

Is that something you would look at, or do you want to see people who've got, you know, money behind them, maybe got a practise, wanted to open a second one, so you can see where their, you know, their accounts have been going, and you can see, oh yeah, this is a good deal. Yeah, of course we'll give them the money, cos I had a practise but was obviously moving it up the road, wanting to get into a better place, a bigger spot. And unfortunately it was 2008 and it got a tiny bit more difficult maybe than it should have been.

Yeah. From our perspective, it is what we usually find, say it's a quarter of a million or 300,000 pounds, is the vast majority of that lend would probably come through from ourselves because as I said right at the beginning, we're very lenient, we'll try and work with the vet. In regards to lending as much as we can, but on the, as I said as well, business partners will will maybe throw in a 50 here and a 50 there, so you could have one pot of let's say 300k we lend like 150 and a 150, 5050, but what the main goal is is get to the amount that the actual client requires.

So therefore you don't, it's not a case of you can only get it from us, nobody else, and if you go anywhere else, we're not going to lend you the money. It's not the case that we want to get to your goal, as we said right at the beginning as well, we want to work with you. Towards actually just starting off that practise, it's just, as I said, that that's basically the foundations and building from that is lending and lending and lending for whatever the client may be or indeed if you've got the clients coming through the door or or the animals or whatever the case may be, you're paying your bills anyway, so it's just a case of we will grow with you.

But yeah, it's, it's, it's not just the one side, as you said, we can lend from the commercial mortgage side of things. We can give you the advance to help you get the deposit going and help on that side. If they don't give you the full amount, we can like give you tranches of funding in regards to make the amount that you need.

Yeah, so you might still use a bank for the commercial mortgage or you could help with the commercial mortgage as well. Absolutely, totally brilliant, so, so just. The bank could do it, but you also have that ability to do commercial mortgages, you, you as a broker, you can organise it, yeah.

Yes, totally, absolutely. I've always said anything to do with it, it's got a pound sign in front of it, we'll do it. Anything.

It's always been the case, we'll never ever turn business away. If we can't do it, we know people that can, for sure. And I, I think the thing is that the veterinary industry, and obviously there's always.

You know, peaks and troughs, obviously we've got a competition commission that I think will, will be interesting how that works out over time. But it's, it's a stable industry, so I suppose you're looking often at the global industry that it is a stable industry. Therefore, if you come as an individual, you expect most veterinary practises don't fail.

We know, you know, startups in tech, I mean, we started up the business, you know, the ed tech business for veterinary surgeons. There were no webinars 14 years ago. A lot of tech businesses that would have started at the same time probably don't exist anymore.

I'm sure there's some that are now worth, you know, billions of pounds as well. But obviously we've been a really stable. Business and I think you see that the veterinary business is stable, there are certain businesses, sectors that are not so stable and presumably you would be a bit more sanguine about borrowing to Lending or lending to, should I say, yeah, yeah, well, well it's just the state of the affairs wasn't it, because during the COVID side of things, hospitality, that was just out the window we we we couldn't go, couldn't go out to visit anybody could we?

So that section we couldn't lend to on that side, but, and then even the construction side of things, we couldn't lend to there because again we couldn't build houses or anything because of COVID, so yeah, so we, we will adapt and help the best we can in regards to any type of client. So, but, you know, that's just the state of the world, but as you said, from my perspective, I've always known that the vets have, you know, have always been good. It's a case of, you know, it's.

Exactly that, exactly that, because you know it's all our animals and and what have you, and pets and all all that side of things, you know, it's a man's best friend, isn't it, really the day so. And we'll make that continue, but yeah, it's, it's to me, it can be like a family member, or it can be of the business side of things, so, it's always been there. Brilliant.

So, Peter, thank you so much for coming on. I think that's been really clear about some of the areas that you can help us in, and obviously at the end of the podcast we can leave some details for people if they want to get in contact, presumably, A chat is free of charge. You're always happy to give some advice and see if if you can help people.

Yeah, you'll also, I think you've got my email address, but, even better than that, you'd have my direct dial number, so you'd actually speak to me directly, you wouldn't go through any switchboard, you'd come to me directly, and as I've said, if I can't help, I'll show you and point you in the right direction, but. 99% of the time I will, as been like I say here 22.5 years, but in the industry over 30 years, I'll, I'll definitely be able to find a way of getting to your requirement and your needs, not a problem.

Peter, thanks so much. You know, money makes the world go round, cash is king, and all those things. It's always good to to know that we've got somebody there who can help us in these areas, so thanks for coming on and giving us your time.

Thank you for the opportunity, really appreciate it, Anthony. You take care. Thanks everyone for listening, hopefully see you on a podcast or a webinar very soon.

Take care, have a great day, bye bye.