Every ABL deal lands in one of three buckets. Park It, Track It, or Sell It. Picking the right one comes down to two questions, in order.
Get those right and the deal almost picks itself.
The first question: business asset or personal asset?
This is the cut that’s most often missed. The answer narrows the product options before anything else does.
Personal assets can secure Park It or Sell It. They cannot secure Track It. Recreational boats, vintage cars, art collections, luxury yachts used for private holidays, owner-operator vehicles held outside the business. Track It is built specifically for business assets in active use, so personal asset deals go to one of the other two structures.
Business assets can secure any of the three. Trucks running freight, plant on civil sites, machinery on the manufacturing floor, harvesters in the paddock, drilling rigs on remote sites. Once you know the asset is business-registered, the second question picks the product.
The three products at a glance
- Park It. Asset stored with Lloyds for the loan term. Open to both business and personal assets. Best when the asset can sit dormant without disrupting anything.
- Track It. Asset stays in service with a discreet GPS tracker fitted. Business assets only. Best when the asset is the income generator and parking it would kill the cash flow.
- Sell It. Asset is being sold during the loan term, with sale proceeds repaying the facility. Open to both business and personal assets. Best when the exit is the sale itself.
The second question: does the asset have to keep working?
Only relevant if the asset is a business asset. If it’s personal, the choice is between Park It and Sell It depending on whether the client is keeping the asset or selling it.
For business assets, the question is whether the business depends on the asset operating day-to-day.
Yes — the truck runs the freight contract, the harvester brings in the crop, the rig fulfils the drilling contract. Parking it would break something. Track It is the answer.
No — the plant sits in the yard between projects, the asset is genuinely dormant for the months ahead. Park It is the cleaner structure.
If the asset is being sold during the loan term, regardless of whether it’s business or personal, that’s a Sell It conversation.
The whole decision in one table
The picker, laid out:
- Personal asset, keeping it: Park It
- Personal asset, selling it: Sell It
- Business asset, can be parked: Park It
- Business asset, must keep operating: Track It
- Business asset, being sold: Sell It
Five scenarios, three products. Every deal we’ve ever funded fits one of those five rows.
Edge cases
A few situations that don’t slot cleanly on the first pass:
- Mixed-use assets. A yacht used for both personal holidays and corporate hospitality. Default treatment is personal asset (Park It or Sell It). If you think otherwise, call us and we’ll talk it through.
- Assets transferring between entities. Asset being moved between related companies mid-loan. Usually a Sell It conversation.
- Partially financed assets. Asset with existing finance against it. The equity above that finance is what’s lendable. Either Park It or Track It can work, but the existing facility position needs to clear first.
- Mixed asset portfolios. A client with a personal yacht and a fleet of trucks. Two separate deals, two separate products. Don’t try to combine them into one structure.
The 30-second test
Two questions you can ask the client on the first phone call:
- Is the asset registered to the business or to you personally?
- If business-registered, would your operations stop if we parked it for three months?
That’s the whole decision tree. Personal asset = Park It or Sell It. Business asset that can be parked = Park It. Business asset that has to keep working = Track It. Asset being sold either way = Sell It.
Every deal we’ve ever funded is one of three things. Park It, Track It, or Sell It. The two questions that pick the product take 30 seconds. Once you know which, you’ve got the deal.
If a client’s deal doesn’t slot cleanly on the first pass, call us. We’ll talk it through in 10 minutes and tell you which structure fits, or whether the deal doesn’t fit ABL at all. There’s no penalty for guessing wrong on the first call — we’ll just redirect to the right product.
Got a client and not sure which fits?
If your client has an asset and a short-term need but you’re not sure which structure fits, call us. We’ll talk it through in 10 minutes. Free desktop valuation and a clear borrowing figure, all inside 2 hours. Same-day settlement when the asset is secured.