Lending

Bridging lender aims to complete £50m in first year




Bridging lender Vitvo has revealed it is on track to complete £50m worth of deals in its first year of operating.

The London-based company launched with a residential investment bridging product in February with strong institutional backing.

Speaking exclusively to Bridging & Commercial, CEO Ian Wilson (pictured above), formerly of JPMorgan, said Vitvo planned to offer heavy refurbishment as soon as August this year.

“The aim is to build Vitvo into a significant player in the property finance market,” added Ian.

Vitvo utilises shorter application forms, no secondary underwriting and parallel processing to regularly complete deals within seven days.

Every deal is decided at inception by the management team and head of underwriting Ken Purchase, ex-director of bridging at Assetz Capital, ruling out the risk of change at a subsequent credit committee.

LTVs are currently limited to up to 60%, however, Vitvo will increase this to 70% over the next few months.

Vitvo expects to become even more competitive next year by securing a cheaper bank funding line to sit alongside its current investment funds.

In a recent deal, Vitvo provided £880,000 for a small developer urgently looking to finish a seven-property development in Staffordshire.

The client needed to refinance a development loan and had already instructed a bridging lender more than two months beforehand to arrange development exit refinancing on their behalf.

However, the developer turned to Vitvo after becoming increasingly frustrated at the lack of progress made by the other lender, which had seemed to misunderstand several aspects of the scheme.

Vitvo was able to provide finance within days of being approached, despite the project having issues surrounding covenants, highway access and adherence to listed building consent requirements.

The lender’s experienced underwriting team maintained direct contact with the borrower’s solicitor in order to better understand the scheme and ensure completion to the original timetable.

“I was really impressed with how Vitvo [was] able to quickly step in and run with this deal,” said Murray Jones of Access2Funding, which had acted for the borrower.

“They had a real ‘can-do’ attitude that was refreshing to see.

“I shall definitely be doing more deals with them.”

Leave a comment