Creation or takeover of a business: how to obtain a loan to finance your project

Create a file to present your project

In order to complete your bank loan request, you must be able to present your business creation or takeover project to banks.

Expose your business plan

The business plan of your future company must be presented to banking establishments. His goal ? Convince the banks to provide you with their financial support! Summary of your entrepreneurial project, your business plan is intended to describe both the strategy you intend to deploy and the expected return on investment .

Develop a financing plan

Before applying for a loan from a bank, it is essential that your project to create or take over a business is sufficiently advanced in order to be able to present a financing plan . Integrated into your business plan, the financing plan can be decisive for the acceptance of your loan request since its objective is to demonstrate the financial reliability of your project . To this end, it shows the needs necessary to start your activity, compared to the resources you have.

The needs include:

establishment costs (costs related to creation formalities such as court costs or the fees of a lawyer drafting the articles of association )

intangible assets (intangible assets that serve the business in the long term, such as advertising or software costs)

intangible assets (material goods such as furniture or vehicles)

financial fixed assets (sums of money to cover the first rent and the security deposit, for example)

start-up cash (sufficient cash to pay for VAT financing in particular)

the working capital requirement (amount of money needed to ensure the operating cycle of the company, in particular when the collection of customers occurs after the payment of suppliers).

Resources include:

equity (your contribution and/or that of  your partners)

borrowed capital (  amounts borrowed by the company).

Obtaining a loan: what are the elements taken into account?

Although each financial institution has its own criteria for granting or not granting a loan to a start-up company, they all share expectations to which you must be vigilant when setting up your project.

The financial reliability of the project

Your project must appear sufficiently realistic for the bank approached to be convinced by the business plan presented. In this regard, underestimating the amount to be borrowed could play against you if the banking establishment considers that the amount requested will not be able to ensure the start of your activity.

A balance between equity and debt

A banking institution, even ready to accompany you, will often prefer to share the risks . On this subject, Bpifrance Création indicates that “it is advisable to balance equity and borrowings as best as possible”, up to “50/50”.

If you are having difficulty raising enough money to complete your bank loan request, you can apply for an honor loan , without interest or guarantees, which will be used to strengthen your contribution.

Find out more about the honor loan

In order to spread the risks, do not hesitate to call on several banking establishments and thus divide the amount borrowed from each.

In case of refusal: what alternatives?

Any refusal of loan must be justified and argued.

15 , responsible for acting as an intermediary between you and the banking establishment.

Learn more about business credit mediation

Also, this reasoned refusal can be an opportunity to take stock of your project, by asking a support organization for example, so that it can give you a second look at the ambitions and objectives that you have set for yourself. You can find a summary of these organizations on the BPI France website.

Finally, having recourse to a bank loan is not the only alternative available to you in order to finance your project. Launching a crowdfunding campaign , like obtaining the support of a business angel , can allow you to realize your entrepreneurial ambitions!