Borrower to fund redevelopment
Specialist lender West One Loans has completed a £7.8 million large, complex, commercial bridging loan to finance the redevelopment of a boutique hotel in Suffolk.
The borrower, a family-run limited company with extensive experience in property and commercial investment, needed £6 million to refurbish the hotel and planned to secure against a large multi-unit commercial facility in London.
The large commercial premises in East London, totalling over 115,000 square feet, had been owned by the family for nearly 20 years, across four titles. It was in a prime London location for residential development, making the site very attractive.
The commercial site was up for sale, and this was in negotiation at the time of application for the hotel finance. However, the sale of the estate was slow, creating a cash flow issue for financing the hotel development works.
There was further complexity as the borrower was a limited company that was owned by a parent company, whose majority shares were in trust. This added legal complications that the West One underwriters had to navigate.
The finance was taken over a 24-month term to allow additional time for the negotiations and legal due diligence for selling a site of this scale. This case from submission to completion took less than a month.
“There are often complications when dealing with large commercial premises – particularly when involving a trust. West One was immediately able to see the commercial strengths to the case and take a pragmatic view,” the introducing broker, Scott West from City Finance Brokers, said.
“This is a great example of how clear communication from the outset, between broker and lender, allowed us to tailor a facility over a complex package to meet the needs of the borrower,” Nick Jones, sales director of bridging at West One Loans, added.
