Octane Capital

Octane Capital and Sirius complete £7.3m bridge




Octane Capital has announced the completion of a £7.3m bridging loan secured against 11 residential properties in north London comprising 65 self-contained flats.

The portfolio had an aggregate value of £12.6m, but had been financed before the global financial crash when underwriting was less robust and also had a number of long-term planning issues.

These ranged from an unauthorised loft conversion in an otherwise consented building to fully unauthorised building reconfigurations.

This resulted in the 76-year-old borrower – a client of Sirius Property Finance – being unable to refinance via a high street lender.

The borrower required the funding to secure all the necessary consents and authorisations, as well as to refinance his existing portfolio in full as part of his estate planning.

The 15-month bridging loan was completed in just four weeks and included a 250-page complex portfolio valuation carried out by Lambert Smith Hampton.

“Octane have made it clear they want to focus on loans that other lenders consider unworkable and they’ve certainly lived up to that here,” said Nick Christofi, director at Sirius Property Finance.  

“It’s a loan no other lender in the market could have completed given the extensive planning-related hurdles and red flags but the Octane risk team, led by Matt Smith and Alex Tyrwhitt, managed to overcome them one by one.”

Matt Smith, director of risk at Octane Capital (pictured above), said: “At Octane, we relish detailed underwriting and this loan – with a particular focus on securing retrospective planning consents – was one of the most complex we have worked on to date.

“Underwriting on the high street before the global financial crisis was far less robust and, as a result, we are seeing a lot more loans like this surface.”

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