The decision follows the recent acquisition of Ruffler Bank by Base’s backers, AnaCap Financial Partners, which gives Base access to retail funding. Base and Ruffler Bank are in the process of merging their operations to create a strongly capitalised business which is ideally positioned to provide a competitive range of property and asset finance facilities to small and medium sized businesses throughout the country.
Mark Stephens, Chief Executive at Base, said: “We’re delighted to be back in the commercial mortgage market once again, but are very mindful that we need to maintain a tight control over both business quality and volumes. We have therefore decided to control our distribution via a limited panel of professional commercial finance brokers located throughout the UK. We have notified these brokers and will be working very closely with them over the coming weeks to ensure they fully understand our underwriting and processing requirements.
“I do appreciate this means that some brokers who have dealt with us in the past will not be able to submit business directly to us in the future. We are very grateful for their past support and our aim is to widen our panel once we have settled back into lending. I do hope those brokers understand the reason why we have decided to relaunch via a restricted panel. However, there is nothing stopping brokers contacting members on our panel if they have cases they would like to submit to Base.”
Base Commercial Mortgages was established in 2007 by AnaCap Financial Partners, a specialist private equity fund focused on the financial services sector with more than €850 million under management. Base had to stop lending in July 2008 as a direct result of the credit crisis, which prevented it from raising competitively priced funding in the inter-bank markets. However, the company has maintained its operational capability in its Peterborough head office and, with a new funding line in place, is now able to resume lending once again.
