LONDON: Shawbrook Group plc today announced that an agreement has been signed to acquire ThinCats Group Limited, a leading specialist lender with a strong track record in providing bespoke funding to established, growth-focused SMEs.
The acquisition of ThinCats represents a strategic investment in accelerating the growth of Shawbrook’s existing presence in the specialist SME lending market, underlining the Group’s commitment to supporting UK SMEs with highly tailored finance facilities and relationship-led service.
ThinCats has an established market position, proven origination capabilities and a technology-enabled business model that is strategically aligned to Shawbrook’s. On completion, the ThinCats brand will operate as part of the Group’s portfolio of brands, continuing to support owner-managed and sponsor-backed businesses with funding for event-driven needs.
ThinCats operates a streamlined tech-stack that complements Shawbrook’s technology infrastructure and platform. ThinCats also benefits from an established distribution network and strong origination capabilities, delivered by an experienced team with deep expertise in each of its target SME segments.
Shawbrook’s SME lending business supports ambitious growth-focused and established businesses with a targeted range of bespoke solutions to meet their specific and often complex funding needs. The SME segment accounted for c.21%1 of the Group’s total loan book as at 30 June 2025 and reported increased levels of activity across its markets, with both new lending and pipeline volumes exceeding those in the first half of 2024.
On completion, the acquisition will include a projected loan book of c.£0.7 billion with corresponding risk weighted assets of approximately c.£0.6 billion. The transaction is expected to be earnings per share accretive in the first full financial year post completion, delivering a highly attractive return on invested capital2.
Completion of the acquisition is expected later in 2025.
Marcelino Castrillo, Chief Executive Officer at Shawbrook, commented: “ThinCats is a leading UK FinTech with an excellent track record for delivering bespoke funding to growth-focused SMEs, whose owners, management teams and sponsors value speed, flexibility and certainty.
ThinCats’ approach is aligned to our own strategy of leveraging technology, credit excellence and an entrepreneurial culture to deliver a premium proposition to established UK SMEs.
This acquisition will serve to further scale-up and deepen our presence in the very large and growing SME market. As part of the Shawbrook Group, the ThinCats proposition will benefit from our platform, including distribution channels, investment and funding structure, which will allow us to scale the brand more efficiently and serve even more UK SMEs with highly tailored funding solutions.”
Amany Attia, Chief Executive Officer at ThinCats, said: “Becoming part of Shawbrook represents an exciting step for ThinCats and a strong endorsement of our model, supporting established and growth-focused SMEs. Underpinned by the significant technology, data and capital resources of the wider Shawbrook Group, ThinCats will continue to offer the high levels of coverage, innovation, service, and ongoing borrower relationships that business owners, professional advisers and financial sponsors have come to expect.”