Oil and gas services company Aubin has netted £2.25 million from the bank-backed Business Growth Fund (BGF).

Aberdeen-headquartered Aubin, which was founded in 1986, supplies specialist cementing and stimulation chemicals used in drilling and preparing wells for production. According to the business, the majority of its trade is through the Middle East.

The £2.25 million commitment will be used to commercialise a new set of gel-based product lines which the business has spent the last few years creating. Aubin will also use the capital to expand its sales and marketing teams and invest in on-going research and development.

To go with the seven-figure investment, Bank of Scotland has provided Aubin with a £500,000 debt facility through the government’s Funding for Lending scheme. BGF says that the details of the transaction involving bank lending mirror the framework of its investment in STATS Group back in March 2012, its first Scottish Investment.

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• BGF makes first Scottish investment
• Business Growth Fund closes eighth deal
• BGF sees promise in Morphsuits firm AFG Media

BGF has also installed a new non-executive chairman in the form of Graham Philip, currently deputy chairman of Ashtead Technology and previously CEO of Vroon Offshore Services. The appointment now means that BGF has placed 17 non-executive chairman and non-executives.

Paddy Collins, managing director of Aubin, says that prior to the deal with BGF being completed, he had been contacted by ‘a number’ of interested private equity investors but that the bank-backed fund was his preferred backer.

‘The additional capital and range of opportunities it will allow give us the freedom to focus on growth, as well as research and development, and should allow Aubin to expand at a pace that we could not otherwise have contemplated,’ Collins adds

Simon Monro, BGF’s regional director for Scotland, comments, ‘This is exactly the sort of business that BGF should be backing.

‘Over the years Aubin has always been profitable, but significant growth has been limited due to capital constraints. Those constraints have largely been removed and we’re looking forward to helping Aubin reach its full potential.’

The Business Growth Fund has now backed a total of 25 companies with £120 million of growth capital across 17 different sectors. Earlier in February the fund invested in its youngest company to date when telecoms business Bullitt Group secured £3.5 million.