Lakepoint saves an Okanagan civil contractor over $120,000 and frees up its credit line

This engagement came to us by way of a referral from the client's external accountant, the kind of introduction we always appreciate, because it usually means someone has looked closely at the numbers and decided their client deserves a better deal. The client is a civil contractor serving the Okanagan's residential, commercial, and industrial sectors, a firm with more than fifteen years of steady success behind it. The business was running well, but its banking arrangement had not kept pace. The owners came to us with a short list of goals, and all of them pointed at the same theme: their financing had become a constraint rather than a tool.

The biggest frustration was the operating line of credit. It was heavily "margined," meaning the bank tied how much the company could actually draw to a formula based on its receivables and other current assets. On paper the limit looked healthy. In practice, the margining conditions were onerous enough that the client could rarely use the full facility, which is a frustrating place to be when you have payroll to run and projects to fund.

There was also a structural challenge that had nothing to do with this particular business and everything to do with how lenders see its sector. Civil contractors often get lumped in with "trade contractors," a category many lenders treat as higher risk almost by reflex. That label can follow a strong, well-run company around and quietly limit its options. Getting past it took two things: creative structuring on our part, and finding a lender willing to embrace that structure rather than retreat to the default playbook.

So we prepared a Request for Financing that presented the business on its own merits, took it to our lender network, and ran a competitive process. Multiple offers came back. A chartered bank won with a package that addressed every goal:

Greater borrowing flexibility: The new $1.5 million operating line came in 100% unmargined, removing the borrowing-base formula entirely and giving the client full, unrestricted access to the facility.

Lower borrowing costs: Refinancing the existing term debt at very competitive rates produced over $120,000 in interest savings across three years.

Stronger cash flow: Several higher-cost credit facilities were consolidated into a singular $1.7 million mortgage-secured term loan amortized over 25 years, which reduced mandatory principal payments by over $400,000 over the same three-year period, freeing up real cash for the business to put to work.

Additional capacity: The package also included an upsized $1,000,000 million revolving equipment line and a $500,000 corporate credit card facility, giving the company more room to invest and operate.

The net result was a financing structure that finally fit the business instead of fighting it: a line they can fully use, lower costs, and meaningfully better cash flow. It turns out "higher risk" was never the right label. It just needed someone to make the case. If your bank has put your company in a box it does not belong in, we would be glad to take a look and see what is actually possible.