Downing LLP’s specialist lending team has reached a significant milestone with commitments exceeding £500m.
About £200m of this achievement has been accomplished in under a year, signalling substantial and consistent growth for the team.
The specialist lending team at Downing LLP, primarily focusing on residential development finance for experienced developers and providing wholesale finance solutions to other lenders, has accomplished this remarkable growth amid testing market and economic conditions.
Parik Chandra, partner and head of specialist lending at Downing LLP, said: “Despite a challenging macro environment, we continue to see strong growth in our property lending team. This success has been achieved with a stringent focus on risk management and high-quality origination.
“Many attractive lending opportunities remain in the property development market, and we will continue to support SME developers. Our wholesale lending proposition, particularly from bridging lenders, has also garnered significant interest.”
The team at Downing dedicates its efforts to channel funds from investors as secured loans to property developers overseeing residential-led schemes nationwide. It also supports non-speculative commercial developments and specialist sub-sectors such as student accommodation.
Downing’s main focus within wholesale financing involves providing facilities to SME lenders, predominantly in the property sector.
By targeting an attractive yield through a “safety-first” approach, Downing believes that its investors can benefit from debt investments secured against property development projects and wholesale lending opportunities. This approach emphasises relationship-based sourcing and collaboration with experienced counterparties.
Downing LLP typically extends loans ranging between £1 million and £25 million to experienced developers, with the capacity to increase this amount under exceptional circumstances. It offers up to 90% loan-to-cost and 70% loan-to-gross-development value. Within wholesale finance, Downing primarily focuses on lending to bridging lenders but is also open to considering lending to other secured lenders.
