OakNorth funds West Coast Estates acquisitions in Scotland
Fraser McPhail said: “We look forward to supporting West Coast Estates across further opportunities as they continue to grow their portfolio.”
OakNorth has provided a loan to West Coast Estates to fund the acquisition of two commercial properties in Aberdeen and St Andrews.
The facility also included headroom for further acquisitions.
In St Andrews, the company acquired a seven-acre site on Craigtoun Road with consent for more than 60,000 sq ft of retail, office and employment space.
The scheme is expected to create more than 170 permanent jobs and 100 construction jobs, with Home Bargains named as the anchor retailer.
In Aberdeen, West Coast Estates acquired Grampian House on Virginia Street.
The former warehouse has planning permission to become an indoor drive-through ultra-rapid electric vehicle charging hub.
The site has been pre-let to Fastned on a 35-year lease and is due to open in winter 2026.
Plans include 12 charging bays capable of delivering up to 400kW, alongside a café, shop and waiting area.
Iftikar Mian, director at West Coast Estates, said: “These two acquisitions represent years of work – identifying the sites, building the relationships, progressing the planning, and agreeing pre-lets and pre-sales to de-risk the projects.
“That’s how we operate, and it requires a lender who understands the strategy.
“OakNorth took the time to genuinely understand what we were trying to achieve and why, and structured a facility that reflected that understanding.”
Mian added: “They were direct, they moved at pace, and they backed us without requiring us to justify the model from scratch – which, after 30 years of doing this, makes a real difference.”
Fraser McPhail, debt finance director at OakNorth, said: “Sarfraz and Iftikar have developed a distinctive and highly disciplined approach to commercial development in Scotland – patient, methodical, and with a genuine eye for sites that others overlook.
“The Aberdeen EV hub is a particularly compelling asset: a Fastned tenancy, a 35-year lease, and a genuinely pioneering format that reflects both the strength of the operator and the quality of the site West Coast Estates identified and secured.
“St Andrews is an equally strong story – one of the most commercially constrained planning environments in Scotland, with a scheme of genuine scale and ambition already well underpinned by a pre-sale to Home Bargains.”
McPhail added: “We look forward to supporting West Coast Estates across further opportunities as they continue to grow their portfolio.”
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