Need a loan to grow your small business? There’s a pot of money waiting
We provide loans [to small businesses]. We do not invest in them… Our average loan size is about R4 million…
Kumaran Padayachee, CEO - Spartan SME Finance
We don’t fund ideas. We fund a business that is already doing something viable, and they need capital to grow… There is more money than there are viable deals… People are not presenting themselves well…
Kumaran Padayachee, CEO - Spartan SME Finance
Spartan SME Finance provides finance for small businesses.
In 2019, it got R100 million from the SA SME Fund to bolster its R600 million kitty.
Spartan ringfenced half of the funding it got from the SA SME Fund Half for black African owned businesses.

Discovery CEO Adrian Gore and former Bidvest Chairperson Brian Joffe founded SA SME Fund.
Forty-eight JSE-listed companies bankrolled the Fund with R1.4 billion.
The Money Show’s Bruce Whitfield interviewed Kumaran Padayachee, CEO at Spartan SME Finance for his weekly “ShapeShifter” feature.
Listen to the interview in the audio below (and scroll down for more quotes from it).
We really scrutinise them very intensely, but very fast…
Kumaran Padayachee, CEO - Spartan SME Finance
They find us. We don’t have salespeople…
Kumaran Padayachee, CEO - Spartan SME Finance
Our bad debt write-offs are 0.25%... it’s nothing!
Kumaran Padayachee, CEO - Spartan SME Finance
We make our money on interest and fees…
Kumaran Padayachee, CEO - Spartan SME Finance
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This article first appeared on 702 : Need a loan to grow your small business? There’s a pot of money waiting
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