Hilco Real Estate Finance (HREF) has completed a £4.5m bridging loan over 24 months for a 130-acre holiday park in Suffolk.
The facility is secured against Stonham Barns, a site near Ipswich, which has been running for over 10 years and includes more than 400 lodge, static caravan and touring caravan pitches.
Facilities at the park include a retail village, golf course, theatre and fishing lakes.
The loan helped the borrower repay several existing debts and restructure the business for growth.
Valuations were carried out by Christie & Co, with legal due diligence from Lawrence Stephens.
Michael Clark, former group sales and operations director at Parkdean Resorts, provided additional advisory support.
Brad Altberger, CEO at HREF, said: “As we continue to expand our offering, this loan is another example of our ability to lend across a wide variety of asset classes.
“The holiday park sector is a challenging subset of the wider real estate market, but at a time when both traditional and alternative lenders are retreating from this niche market, HREF was able to leverage the deep expertise of our team to quickly extend a credit facility that allowed the borrower to achieve its financing objectives.
“While other lenders continue to retrench, we aim to markedly increase our exposure to the sector.”
Max Lewis, chief investment officer at HREF, said: “Stonham Barns was a complicated and intricately structured loan featuring alternative real estate that is not widely understood.
“HREF has both the financial and human capital to execute such loans in short order and subject to our borrowers’ constrained timelines.
“Following the completion of the Stonham Barns loan, HREF continues to build its book and its presence in the bridging market.”
