London based real estate bridging finance lender and fund manager Montello has announced that George Patellis has joined as a senior adviser to their business.

Mr Patellis was previously Chief Executive Officer at bridging finance company Tiuta plc.

Prior to that Mr Patellis had helped build Preferred Mortgages up from a start-up, through to bringing in Barclays Private Equity as a major stakeholder in a deal worth £270m, through to its ultimate sale to Lehman Brothers. Preferred Mortgages was one of the UK’s niche mortgage lenders, lending approximately £100m each month.

Managing Director of Montello, Christian Faes, commented: “We are excited to have someone of George’s calibre and experience join our team.

“We continue to see our firm recognised as one of the leading short term lenders in the UK, and our flagship Montello Income Fund is largely recognised as the leading real estate bridging finance fund in the market.”

Mr Faes continued: “George will be able to bring an invaluable amount of market knowledge and experience to our business, as we continue to expand our capital base and lending capacity into other niche areas such as medium term lending and JV partnerships.”

Richard O’Toole, who was recently appointed a non-executive director and is also on the board of Goldman Sachs Bank (Europe) plc, will join Mr Patellis at Montello.

Mr Patellis, who is based out of New York, will be assisting Montello with a range of strategic projects. This will include assessing the viability of establishing an office for Montello in New York (for North America), and implementing a range of internal processes which will assist Montello grow its business.

Montello Senior Adviser, George Patellis, commented: “Throughout my various discussions with the team at Montello, I was really taken aback with the business that they have been able to develop in their 3 years since starting up.

“They have gone about developing their loan book, internal processes and their whole business, in a very methodical and mature manner. There is a lot of work to be done, but I look forward to working with the Montello team to build a world-class specialist lender. The ability to broaden Montello’s proposition into other areas of lending from my base in New York, is yet another appealing aspect for me.”