SK FINANCE K.K. lends to small manufacturers in Higashi-Osaka. Our work sits in the space every subcontract workshop knows: materials bought at the start, wages paid throughout, the part delivered on time — and settlement arriving long after all of it.
Indicative timing — terms vary by customer and sector
Who we are
SK FINANCE K.K. is a non-bank finance company in Nagata-higashi, Higashi-Osaka. We are not a bank: we take no deposits and hold no customer accounts. We lend to small manufacturers — machining shops, press and stamping works, plating and finishing operations, and the fabricators who supply them.
Higashi-Osaka holds one of the densest concentrations of small factories anywhere in Japan. Much of what the country builds passes through workshops like these at some point, usually as a subcontracted component that no end customer will ever see.
These businesses share a financial shape that generalist lenders read poorly. Capability is high, order books are often full, and the balance sheet still looks tight — because a full order book means a large amount of work already delivered and not yet paid for.
A busy month makes the cash position worse before it makes it better. Anyone lending to manufacturers has to start there.
Machining, pressing, finishing and fabrication
Based among the workshops we lend to
Total repayable and schedule, in writing
We say when a bank is the better route
Financing
Different points in the cycle need different instruments. What fits depends on where the money is going and what brings it back.
Advancing against invoices already issued to reliable customers. Where the sole problem is settlement timing, this addresses it at the source.
Facilities for suppliers paid on long-dated terms or by promissory note, so the wait for settlement does not stall the next order.
Lathes, machining centres, presses and measuring equipment — capital assets that expand what a shop can quote for and hold value for decades.
Funding steel, alloys and components for a confirmed order that is larger than the shop can finance from its own reserves.
Wages, power and overheads through the stretch between delivering work and being paid for it — the recurring shape of subcontract manufacturing.
Funding around a change of ownership, where a capable workshop needs capital to pass from one generation or owner to the next.
On payment terms
Small suppliers have long carried the working capital of much larger customers. Long settlement periods and payment by promissory note push the burden of financing a job down the supply chain, onto the party least able to absorb it.
National policy has been moving against the practice for years, and payment periods have been tightening. But change arrives unevenly, and a workshop still has to pay for steel and wages this month regardless of what the settlement calendar says.
Average days to payment, customer by customer, is the number to track
A long payment term is a cost. It belongs in the estimate, not in your overdraft
One customer at seventy percent of turnover sets your terms for you
A profitable order on impossible terms can still sink a quarter
How it works
What the funding is for, what brings it back, and on what timetable.
Order book, customers and settlement terms, read by people who know the trade.
Amount, total repayable, schedule and any security required.
Funds released, with a contact who is still reachable next year.
Client feedback
We won a larger order than we had ever handled and could not fund the material for it. The first question here was about our customer's settlement terms, not our balance sheet. Nobody had ever started there before.
They worked through our quoting with us and showed that one long-running job was priced below what it cost us to make. Borrowing would only have let us lose money faster. We repriced it, and financed the machine the following year.
Taking over my father's workshop meant finding capital at exactly the moment the business looked most uncertain to a bank. Being assessed on the order book and the customer list rather than on my own short history made it possible.
FAQ
Get in touch
What the funding is for, who your customers are and how they settle. That is enough for a straight assessment — including when the answer is that you should be talking to your bank instead.