Debt agreement administrator Fox Symes is positioning itself to be a direct lender at the distressed end of the residential and small business markets. The company said yesterday that it secured an additional $10 million facility from Westpac for distressed small business lending.The facility will allow Fox Symes' subsidiary, 180 Group, to expand its current program of 90 day bridging finance and factoring finance that has been funded internally. As at the end of October that loan book was worth about $8 million. 180 Group generally provides services to distressed small businesses with less than $3 million in annual turnover.The new $10 million facility is on top of the $210 million non-recourse funding facility secured in April from Westpac to allow Fox Symes to enter the low doc home lending market. Fox Symes director Tim Maher says the company is excited about its prospects in the distressed small business segment."This is a huge area for us," said Maher yesterday. "There is basically no one else down this end of the marketplace providing a diverse range of solutions for small businesses."In relation to the $210 million facility for mortgages, Maher said that would allow the company to build from its base as Australia's biggest non-conforming mortgage broker. "The problem with being just a broker is that the lenders have pricing that is inflexible."We have built a greater degree of flexibility in our pricing matrix so we can go down to our client base."The Westpac facility comes with a number of lending constraints relating to loan to valuation ratios and postcodes that will remain in place for at least 12 months. Maher says that those constraints are good for the business. The first loans were issued in June and the book currently is worth $28 million.Maher said 88 per cent of Fox Symes' mortgage book was either full doc or provided to pay as you go, or salaried, borrowers, with an average LVR of 63 per cent. "Compared to other non-conforming lenders, we have the lowest LVRs in the marketplace and high concentration of PAYG/full docs in the marketplace."That compares well with say Bluestone and Pepper who have around 65 per cent of their book on self employed [borrowers] and LVRs around 72 to 73 per cent."In 2008, Fox Symes will trial an inventory finance product and says it is investigating and trialling other direct lending products.