BBB chief hints at future support for Covid-hit sectors

The British Business Bank (BBB) chief executive Catherine Lewis La Torre has implied that future support could be targeted at sectors impacted the most from the pandemic.

Lewis La Torre (pictured) told City A.M. that it will continue to consider the impact of Covid-19 on the economy.

Regarding the start-up loans programme, she said there may be “certain types of businesses that on balance (where) we’d be more inclined to want to support because of the larger dislocations that you’ve had in those sectors.”

City A.M. reported that the implication from Lewis La Torre was that smaller firms in sectors such as hospitality and aviation supply chains may be in line for support from the bank.

She said that the state development bank’s core focus is still to work with smaller businesses and that at the height of Covid-19 “it’s hard to conclude that we didn’t operate in a very impactful way” .

Lewis La Torre (pictured) was named interim head of the state development lender in September 2020, replacing Keith Morgan, and has subsequently been appointed permanent chief executive.

She was previously chief executive of British Patient Capital and the BBB’s commercial arm, British Business Investments.

In April, Lewis La Torre told Peer2Peer Finance News that that her friends warned about the risks of women being “set up to fail” in high-profile roles when she took over as interim chief executive of the BBB.

As well as overseeing the start-up loans programme, the bank has been administering the recovery loan scheme.

Most recently the BBB has approved Leumi UK, Leumi ABL and Let’s Do Business Finance to the scheme and has a total of 44 lenders accredited to it, according to the bank’s website.