SLR Business Credit funds $10 million A/R-only facility for fuel distributor

SLR Business Credit said it closed a $10 million senior secured asset-based credit facility for B and B Oil Company, a 50-year-old fuel and lubricant distributor based in East Point, Georgia. The useful detail is the collateral. SLR described the deal as an accounts-receivable-only facility. The receivables are owed by domestic corporate entities, while the borrower buys and distributes diesel fuel, gasoline, oil products, lubricants and DEF across the Southeast. That structure makes the timing problem plain. SLR said the financing will help the company manage working-capital needs tied to 10-day vendor terms common in the fuel-distribution business, and also support growth. A fuel distributor can have real demand and still run short of cash if suppliers want payment before corporate customers clear invoices. ABF Journal carried the same announcement on Sept. 16 and said Joseph Hale Advisors worked with the borrower and SLR on the financing. The public release does not give the advance rate, concentration limits, dilution reserve, customer list, eligibility rules, fuel-price reserve or borrowing-base reporting package. Those omissions matter because the loan is built on invoices, not inventory, equipment or enterprise value. For MCA, RBF, factoring and ABL desks, the fuel-distributor file is a clean example of why revenue alone is thin evidence. The same monthly sales number can carry different risk depending on who owes the money, when the fuel supplier gets paid, how fast invoices age, how often delivery disputes appear, and whether the customer base is made of repeat corporate accounts or one-off jobs. Fuel and lubricant distribution also makes gross-margin and price-movement questions harder to ignore. A lender looking only at deposits can miss the cost side of the cycle. The borrower may collect from strong commercial customers, but the supplier-payment clock can still move faster than the receivable clock. If fuel prices rise, the purchase bill can reset before older invoices convert to cash. An A/R-only facility forces that question into the open. Eligible receivables need aging, obligor quality, dilution history, lien status, collections control and dispute tracking. Delivery tickets, customer purchase orders, invoice dates, credit memos and cash application records become the real support for the line. B and B Oil says it serves construction, agriculture and logistics customers, and offers on-site fuel tank sales and rentals, automated pump monitoring, DEF supply and emergency response services. Those details explain why a distributor can be important to its customers while still needing a financing product matched to receivables timing. Uptime creates the relationship. Collections support the borrowing base. The same lesson applies to shorter-duration funding products. A funder advancing against future card sales or bank deposits should know whether the merchant is also waiting on fleet, jobsite, farm, warehouse or government-account invoices. A deposit stream can look steady while the business is using every collected dollar to keep fuel, parts or inventory moving. The clean file ties cash receipts back to named customers, delivery proof, bank deposits and any existing secured lender control. It also names the person who approves credits, offsets and returned loads, because small exceptions can become real dilution when margins are thin and fuel prices move very quickly. Opinion The payment gap is the credit story This is the sort of file where a funder should read the invoice aging before celebrating the revenue. Ten-day vendor terms can turn a healthy distributor into a daily cash manager. If the receivables are clean, collectible and controlled, the line has a source of repayment. If aging slips or disputes rise, growth can consume liquidity instead of creating it. Plutus covers funder behavior and credit-file discipline at plutusai.net .