Clint White, the head of property Lending at Fiduciam, has spoken of the company's delight after the business closed a €5.5 million bridging development loan in Spain. The deal was significant for many reasons, not least of which was that it took Fiduciam's bridging loan volume in Spain to more than €10 million Euro's in May.
Another factor worth noting in the deal is that Fiduciam, the institutionally funded and pension-fund owned marketplace lender, actually completed the loan in just three days from the firm receiving the valuation.
The borrower was a wealthy British businessman with companies in Spain and in the UK, who took out the €5.5 million Fiduciam loan to finance the development of two luxury villas in Marbella. The loan has an 18-month term, with an interest rate of just 0.80 per cent per month.
White says Fiduciam is seeing strong demand for its bridging product in Spain, particularly from foreign nationals who have moved a lot of their property development activity to Spain. The banks in their country of origin cannot take Spanish mortgages, and the Spanish banks are less likely to grant loans to foreign nationals, particularly if the developer has only moved recently to Spain, or divides their time between their country of origin and Spain.
More good news for the firm comes in the shape of Fiduciam saying it is also seeing increasing demand from Spanish nationals and real estate companies as its bridging product becomes more widely accepted in Spain.
And an upbeat White added:
“We continue to expand our Spanish team in London. Our systems are set up to deal with multi-currency and multi-jurisdiction loans, so it is the same effort for us to grant a loan in Spain than in the UK. As Spain has seen more deleveraging than many other European countries and its real estate market is still in the recovery stage, we expect this strong demand to continue.”
Meanwhile, Cristina Villén, Fiduciam’s originator for Spain, said the loan comes hot on the heels of a strong start to the year, adding:
"And we are expecting to surpass our €40 million lending target for 2019 in Spain. There is a large untapped demand for our loans in Spain and it is great the brokers are helping us to get our name out there. We were very impressed with Cavendish Capital who brought us this transaction and drove the application process.”
The words of praise weren't lost on George Esquiant, director at Cavendish Capital, who brokered the loan and he commented favourably on the business relationship. He said:
“It has been a pleasure to work with Fiduciam on this loan. This transaction demonstrates that we can find suitable solutions for the very diverse needs of our client base by tapping into the wide array of UK-based bridge lenders."