Investment puts SHEilds on course for healthy expansion

A Hull-based health and safety training company is on course for expansion thanks to a £100,000 investment from Finance Yorkshire.

SHEilds Limited, which has its headquarters in Hessle, Hull, provides health, safety, environment and management training to businesses across the world through eLearning, classroom learning and NVQ courses.

The company, established by chairman Mike Shields in 2002, has offices in Dubai and India but was looking for funding to grow its Hull-based sales force and develop a new marketing strategy. Finance Yorkshire invested a £100,000 business loan fund to support the company’s growth plan.

Mike said: “Because many of the courses we offer are taught online, our business has a global reach and we have seen a lot of success not only in the UK, but in India, Africa and the Middle-East. SHEilds has a good track record for growth in terms of both turnover and staff numbers.

“Whilst our business is growing overseas, we see expansion in the UK as just as important and are putting some of the investment into taking on five new members of staff from the local area.

“We are also using the investment to launch a new website and Customer Relationship Management (CRM) system to help us organise our increasing number of clients and ensure they are getting the best possible service.

“We approached Finance Yorkshire after they were recommended to us and we were very pleased with how the investment turned out. The process ran smoothly and we were grateful to Finance Yorkshire for the funding.”

Finance Yorkshire investment manager Ian Atkinson said: “SHEilds is a highly profitable company with great growth prospects in the UK and overseas.

“It is always pleasing to see a company investing in the local community and we were happy to support SHEilds’ plans to take on more staff at its Hessle head office.”

Helping a range of small and medium sized businesses to meet their funding requirements for growth and development, Finance Yorkshire provides seedcorn, loan and equity linked investments, ranging from £15,000 to £2m.

Finance Yorkshire provides seedcorn, loan and equity linked investments, ranging from £15,000 to £2m to help a range of small and medium sized businesses to meet their funding requirements for growth and development.

The project is supported financially by the European Union. It has attracted £30million investment from the European Regional Development Fund (ERDF) as part of Europe’s support for the region’s economic development through the Yorkshire and Humber ERDF Programme, £15million from Yorkshire Forward’s Single Programme, and £45million match funding from the European Investment Bank.

For more information about Finance Yorkshire, please visit www.finance-yorkshire.com or ring 0845 649 0000.

Note: this news article is from Finance Yorkshire’s previous fund. Read more about Finance Yorkshire