Rainbow Productions

The four industrial units that are home to Rainbow are a feast for the eyes, full of creatives making the life-size characters at different tables with sewing machines and reams of different coloured materials stacked on shelves.

With the advent of Covid-19 and the subsequent lockdowns, the events industry was forced into a hiatus. As Rainbow has a significant revenue stream not only making character costumes but also managing personal appearances by licensed characters, the pandemic was a major dent to their business.

But as the events industry has blossomed again following that enforced dormant period, demand for Rainbow’s services has exploded past pre-pandemic levels. As a result, the company needed more room not only for manufacturing, but also to store the increasing number of life-size characters they regularly provide for events.

When an opportunity arose to buy another premises a short five-minute walk away from their existing premises, the location was ideal.

When Simon discovered that an industrial unit had come up for sale on the same business park Rainbow calls home, he approached Allica to see if we could help.

“We’ve always worked with likeminded organisations and when we were looking to expand the business, we approached Allica to see if they could finance our expansion,” explains Managing Director Simon Foulkes. “They cut through an awful lot of the bureaucracy and very quickly we realised they had the same ethos as we did. We chose Allica because they saw the bigger picture.”

Simon applied for a commercial mortgage for the new industrial unit at the end of May 2023 and the deal was approved by our credit team on 6th June. The process took just ten days!

Explaining why Allica Bank was happy to lend the money to Rainbow from a financial perspective, Allica Bank’s Relationship Manager Martin Parker said, “It is a relatively straightforward trading business with good numbers and a really clear, demonstrable repayment capacity from the annual accounts. We could see strong profits from what they were doing, and they were keeping a decent amount of those profits in the business.”

The deal was delayed by several legal complexities which came to light during the conveyancing process, but Martin worked tirelessly with lawyers to get the deal over the line. He was in contact with Simon regularly, visiting the business several times until the purchase of the new industrial unit had been completed.

Every Allica customer has email and phone details for a relationship manager they can contact anytime. “The key to any relationship, whether its banking or anything else in business, is communication. And what we’re able to do at Allica is have really short lines of communication,” said Martin.

“The thing about Rainbow – and why they are one of my favourite all time customers – is that they combine a really world class product, fantastic manufacturing and performance capabilities, but also it’s a business that exists to make people smile. For every pound we’ve loaned we’ve probably generated about 100 smiles and that makes this one of the best things I’ve done,” said Martin.