Christian Faes, Managing Director of Montello Bridging Finance, explained: “There seems to be some increased nervousness in the market from investors, and so we took the decision to provide a report which details absolutely everything. We are very proud of the Montello Income Fund, and there is a really good story here for investors – so we thought that we may as well tell it."
The report details a number of things about Montello which weren’t previously public, including a full breakdown of every loan within its Montello Income Fund (including information on the loan sizes, post-codes, and loan durations).
Of interest to B&C was the disclosure that Montello currently has £35 million in funds under management, and that it has an ‘open offer’ from a hedge fund for a further £20 million of funding. The figures reveal that the Montello Income Fund is growing by about £1 million a month in net additional investor in-flows.
Some other statistics from the report show that Montello’s fund currently:
- has over 20 per cent of its loan book lent against commercial property;
- is mainly lending in London (over 92 per cent);
- has 83 properties in the current loan portfolio;
- the average LTV across the Fund is 61.76 per cent.
The report also provides some very interesting commentary on the size of the bridging finance market. The report states: “Some commentators suggest [the market] is over £1 billion; but the reality is that the market can be as big as you would like it to be – if you have no regard for the quality of the loan book."
The report goes on to say that the funds under the lender's management “continue to grow at a sensible and organic pace … the focus for the group is to ensure that the bridging loan book grows with our deal-flow and the market opportunity."
The report provides a very confident view of the bridging finance world, and the lender’s fund. Montello is also putting their money where their mouths are, as the report also discloses that the directors of Montello are personally invested in their own fund providing a perfect alignment of investor and management’s interests.
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