16th May 2013

A company has opened its fourth Pizza Hut Delivery franchise, creating 30 new jobs, with funding from NatWest provided through the Government's Funding for Lending scheme.

Nottingham firm S&G Enterprise have launched a new store in Ilkeston and is refurbishing its existing branch in Mansfield with a NatWest loan of £188,000.

The company also took advantage of Pizza Hut's new franchise incentive scheme which offers existing and new franchisees up to £65,000 to support new store openings.

Lee Humphries, founder of E&G Enterprise, started work with Pizza Hut as a delivery boy, moving up to become shop manager and then area manager. After Pizza Hut adopted the franchise model, Humphries and his wife Sara opened their first delivery franchise in 2003. In addition to the Mansfield store, they also have stores in Sutton in Ashfield and Hucknall.

The couple launched the Ilkeston store at the end of April, generating jobs for 23 part-time staff and 7 full-time staff. Humphries hopes to open a further site in Chesterfield later in 2013.

Lee said: "This is important funding for us. It has allowed us to take our business forward and with the new shop we will have a much wider customer base."

Ryan Bridge, Senior Relationship Manager for NatWest in Chesterfield, said: "S&G Enterprise is an ambitious business and I'm pleased we've been able to support them with this funding.

The Funding for Lending scheme is one of the ways we can help support local businesses like S&G and I know there are many others with in a similar position where we can help them realise their ambitions."

The FFL scheme is being used by NatWest and RBS to cut interest rates on £2.5bn of SME loans by an average one percentage point. It is expected that £100m in total will be saved on the cost of borrowing over the life of the scheme.

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