Bankable business plan wins a €380,000 loan for an Eschborn caterer

Situation

A business catering company in Eschborn, 28 staff, about €2.4 million revenue a year, supplying the office parks around the town. It had outgrown its production kitchen. A larger unit two streets away would cost about €430,000 to fit out with cooking lines, cold rooms and two delivery vans. The owner could put in €50,000 and needed a loan of €380,000.

The house bank was willing in principle. It wanted a written plan with a three-year forecast and, because kitchen equipment makes poor collateral, a Bürgschaftsbank Hessen guarantee for part of the loan. A Bürgschaftsbank is a guarantee bank that stands behind a small firm’s loan when the firm cannot offer enough security. Both had a checklist, and the owner’s four-page description met almost none of it.

Approach

We wrote the plan in the structure a credit committee and a guarantee bank expect: company and owner, market and customers, the move and what it changes, team, financing request, numbers. Eighteen pages, plus the forecast as an annex.

The forecast is a three-year profit-and-loss statement, which shows what the firm earns and spends in a year and what is left. We built it from three years of accounts, so every growth assumption is anchored in what the kitchen had already done. Revenue grows in the plan to about €3.1 million by year three, because the new kitchen roughly doubles daily capacity and two office-park framework contracts were already signed. EBITDA, meaning earnings before interest, tax and depreciation, was about €190,000 a year before the move and rises to about €270,000 in year three. Against yearly loan payments of about €58,000 that leaves room, and the plan shows it in one table.

The financing section is written so the bank can copy it into its own credit memo: total need, owner’s contribution, requested loan, term, and the guarantee bank’s share.

The tax adviser (Steuerberater) checked the tax lines and the depreciation of the new equipment. Nothing in the plan is tax or legal advice, and the adviser and the lawyer cover their own ground.

Result

In this scenario the plan went to the house bank in week three. The bank forwarded it unchanged to the Bürgschaftsbank. The guarantee came four weeks later, the loan approval a week after, and the owner signed the kitchen lease the same month. The three-year forecast now sits in the firm’s monthly reporting, so the owner sees whether the plan is holding.

What it cost

The engagement cost €3,500 as a fixed price, quoted before the work started. We sized it to the ceiling of the BAFA programme, the federal subsidy that reimburses part of a small firm’s consulting fee. In this scenario the grant refunded half, so the plan cost the owner about €1,750 net. The price bought the 18-page plan, the forecast, the financing section, and one revision round after the bank’s first questions. Delivery took three weeks. The work is covered by our 100% money-back guarantee: full refund on request within 14 days of delivery.

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