Refinance your factory or manufacturing property loan

Ardent Capital Group brings the same method to every client: execution and strategy, clear advice for smart lending, and long-term growth. That means the right lender, structure and timing, straight advice so you borrow with confidence, and today's deal built toward where you want to be tomorrow. On a manufacturing refinance the building is the straightforward part. What decides the file is the plant: what is registered against your company, what is owned outright, and what has been built into the building since you settled. We get that reconciled, place the file, and stay with it past drawdown. Every figure is subject to serviceability, lender appetite and approval.

We refinance commercial facilities from $50K up to $30M, whether that is a single production unit or a facility with heavy power, cranes and a yard. The new limit is set by the current valuation and by servicing, not by what you originally borrowed.

Because your bank can only tell you what your bank will do, and in manufacturing the spread comes down to how a credit team reads the plant and a borrower whose equipment sits across several financiers. We do the legwork: we run the comparison across more than 40 lenders, work out which are genuinely writing plant-heavy factories right now, and present to one at a time so your credit file does not collect an enquiry for every conversation. We also model the break costs, valuation and legals against what moving actually gains you, and if it does not stack up we will tell you that.

Up to 80% of the current value. A factory is standard commercial security, grouped with warehouses, shops and offices rather than with specialised assets. The figure follows a fresh valuation, not the price you originally paid.

Because the company being searched is now yours. Industrial plant and machinery is not serial-numbered property on the register, so an interest over a press, a lathe or a CNC cell is found by searching the company that granted it rather than the machine. Every equipment financier you have used since settlement sits behind your company name, and an incoming property lender will see all of it. What makes that straightforward is an asset register that reconciles to what is actually registered, and we put that together with you before anything is lodged.

It is not unusual and it is fixable, but fix it early. A registration does not come off on its own when the facility behind it is discharged, so a stale one can sit against your company long after the debt is gone. Clearing it means going back to the financier that lodged it. Done at the start of a refinance that is a few phone calls. Left until an incoming lender runs its search, it is a delay in the middle of a settlement timetable. We check the position at the outset.

The test is whether it is a fixture or a chattel. Fixtures form part of the real property and sit inside the security, so crane rails and gantries, a mezzanine, slab works engineered for a heavier press, additional roller doors and the hardstand outside are read as part of the building. Chattels are not included in a mortgage valuation of real property, so a machine that can be unbolted and trucked away sits outside it and carries its own facility. The same machine can be argued either way depending on how it is fixed, which is why the position is settled before lodgement rather than at valuation.

Yes, where the current valuation supports it. Cash out on a commercial refinance is assessed on the purpose of the funds, so the lender wants to know what it is for. New plant, a mezzanine, a crane installation, an extension, the deposit on a second site or a working capital buffer are all ordinary purposes. We evidence the purpose properly at the outset, which is what keeps it straightforward.

It should be in the valuation, because both are part of the building rather than equipment sitting in it. Crane rails, gantries and the underhook height they create, a mezzanine and slab works engineered to carry heavier plant all form part of what a valuer prices, and they widen the pool of manufacturers who could take the building on. None of it counts until a valuer sees it, so we brief the valuer on what has been installed since settlement rather than leaving it to be noticed on the day.

On its own facility, and that is deliberate rather than a compromise. Presses, lathes, CNC cells, gantry cranes, compressors and production lines go on chattel mortgage or equipment finance over a term that matches the working life of the machine, which is a very different number to the life of a building. Rolling a machine into a 25 year mortgage means paying for it long after it has stopped earning. The property refinance can release equity toward the plant program without the plant ending up on the property loan.

Often not. A decline on a top up is one lender applying one policy on one day, and in manufacturing the policies differ sharply. The building is standard commercial security, so it is written by a wide group of banks and non-banks with genuinely different appetites on heavy plant, on LVR and on how they read a borrower with equipment across several financiers. We look at why the answer was no, then place the file where that reason is not the deciding one.

It can, and it is established rather than assumed. Engineering, plating, welding and chemical handling are activities the environment regulators take an interest in. In Australia the process starts with a Preliminary Site Investigation, which reviews the site history and the land around it, and only if that raises a question does it go to a Detailed Site Investigation, which samples soil and groundwater. The requirement usually reaches you through the valuer rather than a published credit policy, and at least one lender lists contaminated land as an unacceptable security outright. Where you already hold a clean report from your purchase, put it forward.

Four to six weeks from application to settlement for a straightforward file. Where an SMSF, a site investigation or a plant register that needs tidying are involved it takes longer. We give you a realistic timeline at the start so you can plan the expiry date around it.

The existing loan statements, two to three years of financial statements and tax returns for the trading entity, personal tax returns and notices of assessment for the guarantors, a statement of assets and liabilities, and the schedules for every equipment facility. The one that matters most here is a current asset register for the plant, with what is owned outright and what is financed set out clearly. Supply agreements, wholesale contracts and long-standing customers are worth naming too, because contracted work reads very differently to one-off jobs.

The costs are a valuation, legal and settlement fees, any lender establishment fee, discharge costs from your current lender, and break costs where you are leaving a fixed rate. Break costs are an economic cost, so they are calculated on the day and vary with how much fixed term is left. We put the real numbers against the benefit before you commit to anything.

Yes, it is possible, and we arrange these. It is also one of the more intricate refinances in commercial finance, and the detail is what decides whether it works. From 10 August 2026 a new arrangement can only be used for business real property, and a factory trading wholly as a business qualifies, whether your own company occupies it or a tenant does. It has to stay the same single property. It is limited to the balance outstanding plus accrued interest, so there is no top up, no redraw and no cash out inside the fund, and borrowed money cannot fund an improvement, which means the arrangement cannot pay for a mezzanine or a crane installation. The plant is financed outside the fund in any case. The holding trust is reassigned to the incoming lender rather than dissolved, which carries a legal cost worth weighing against the gain. Your operating company leases the factory back in writing, at market rent supported by an independent appraisal, and the rent has to actually be paid. Cross-collateralisation is not available inside super. SMSF lending on standard commercial security generally runs between 65% and 80%, the major banks have exited SMSF lending, and lenders want a liquidity buffer left in the fund after settlement. We know this sounds complicated, and we can assist to make things clearer. Reach out to our team and we will guide you through the entire process. We structure the finance, tell you which lenders will take a factory as SMSF security and on what terms, and bring in the SMSF specialists and licensed advisers who set the fund side up. You will not be working it out on your own.

Most of the time, no. Where a refinance requires significant preparation due to its complexity, a small mandate fee may apply, and we will always be upfront about this before any work begins.

Although we are based in Sydney, we service clients across all major Australian cities, including Melbourne, Perth, Brisbane, the Gold Coast, Adelaide, Canberra and Hobart, along with their surrounding regional areas. Wherever your factory is located, we can arrange your finance.

Yes, and it is more common than you would think, because a factory loan is set up at settlement and then simply runs while the plant on the floor turns over around it. That is our core ethos, helping you understand the right strategy, structure and clear advice from the very first conversation. Our main borrower profiles are established business owners and commercial property investors with facilities from $50,000 upwards. We will start by telling you what the building is likely to value at now given what you have installed, what is registered against the company, what sits on your current facility, what moving costs, and whether it is worth making. If it is not, we will say so and you can stay where you are.