‘It is simple, traditional, good old fashioned bridging lending’

‘Storybook lender’ Bluecroft Finance has its own impressive tale to tell as it joins the Bridging Loan Directory.

The Altrincham, Greater Manchester-based group, which started trading 18 months ago and to date has lent £35 million, is confident of hitting a £100 million lending target by the end of 2025. It is then looking to double that over the following 12 months.

“We are well ahead of schedule,” explained Bluecroft’s head of sales Ross Gandy. “Why not reach £200 million by the end of 2026?

There are other examples of lenders in the market who formed a few years ago but are now doing over £300 million.

Our team is growing, more people know who we are, and our funding lines are multiplying.”

Altrincham-based Bluecroft Finance, which is the latest venture of property veteran and managing director David Giovanni, offers a range of products from auction bridging finance, to business bridging, commercial, semi-commercial, HMO, slight refurb and residential.

It has mainly been focused on lending in England and Wales, but the group has just completed its first deal in Scotland and sees more growth north of the border.

Gandy said: “It is simple, traditional, good old fashioned bridging lending.”

Gandy, former managing director of Estateguru and with over 10 years experience in specialist lending, has been in his role since last April after being headhunted by Giovanni who, following the sale of his last venture Ascend Properties to Kuwait-owned Gatehouse Bank, formed Bluecroft Finance to gain a foothold in the bridging finance world.

“I’ve known David for four years. He is very entrepreneurial, successful but also very humble,” Gandy said.

“He got in touch last January to tell me he had set up Bluecroft and wanted me on board to develop the property side. He said this was going to be a significant amount of work for both of us, and he’s been right so far!”

Since last Spring Gandy has been busy building up the Bluecroft Finance website, marketing and branding, developing processes and procedures, cementing partnerships with lawyers and joining the Method Valuation panel. It is also a patron of the NACFB.

He has also hired a strong team beginning with underwriter Salman Ali and head of compliance Neil Pool who he had previously worked with at Estateguru.

The new recruits also include business development managers James Brocklebank, who has over 15 years industry experience in commercial and private banking and specialist finance, and Amer Watson formerly of Roma Finance and MS Lending.

A third BDM will join the team this March and the underwriter team will also soon grow from four to six people.

Overall, there are 17 employees with the aim of hitting around 22 by the end of 2025.

“We are scaling. The more demand we see the more people we need as we don’t want our service standards to drop,” explained Gandy. “

I have a military background and therefore I want to see teamwork, loyalty and hard work from all our staff. We have a lot of experience in this team, and we all learn from each other. “

One thing the team also needs to be is human.

“We are a storybook lender in a market where a lot of other lenders are algorithm lenders. We are about the human touch,” he said.

“It might be a no for now but if you provide us with more information then that could potentially turn into a yes. If an algorithm says no, it remains no.

Another of our USPs is that if you are a broker or a borrower then you have a direct link to our underwriting team.

With several other lenders you deal with the BDM and the only interaction with the underwriting team is an email.

With us it is a phone number, email, and you get an allocated underwriter and case handler.”

This personalised structure also helps Bluecroft typically deliver deals in between three and four weeks.

“A lot of lenders say that, but we can really deliver because of our experience, our processes and the fact that it is all been personal funding to date.

It doesn’t take long to get a yes and then get the terms out,” Gandy said.

That funding structure is set to change given that Bluecroft has just signed its first facility with an institutional investor after three months of meetings and auditing.

Gandy is confident that three other institutional investors will also come on board this year offering facilities.

“The institutional investor we’ve signed with told us that they have never put a facility in place for a bridging lender which is as early in their history as we are.

They want to support us over the next three, four and five years,” Gandy said. “That gives us real confidence.

They believed in our honesty, experience, speed and transparency. They know and believe in David. They know we are not a robot.”

But, Gandy, stressed Bluecroft is “still on its way to perfect” and always learning.

“We’ve had bumps and challenges in the road, and we’ll still get them,” he said. “One of the first deals we did was for a social housing project in Cheshire. It was valued at £3.75 million and we did £2.7million.

We had three weeks to complete but with only a week or so to go the borrower decided they wanted to split the funding from one title into 19 different titles. My only underwriter at the time was on holiday but laptop in hand by the beach he worked round the clock to get that deal through.

Brokers can be demanding, and it is important we go further and beyond for them. They are the bloodline to our business scaling.”

He acknowledged that being a new lender in a competitive market can be tricky in terms of securing broker relationships, but over time trust is built.

“I love competition. I thrive off it,” said Gandy. “But it can be hard given that brokers have a lot of choice when it comes to lenders and because they already have their favourites.

It can be difficult for a new lender to show that it is the real deal, but we’ve found that as soon as a broker has used us, they keep coming back. It takes a lot of resilience and time. You have got to be a solid character because you will get a lot of noes before you get your yes.”

Building up this awareness is partly why Bluecroft is joining the Bridging Loan Directory.

“It is about tapping into those brokers, lawyers, IFAs, accountants and valuers who don’t know us yet,” he said. “We’re also keen to attend more industry events. Listening to what is happening in the market is vital.”

Indeed, Gandy and his team already carefully watch the market and the internal and external factors which can shape sentiment and performance.

“We are always listening to brokers and borrowers and changing our criteria if necessary. I’m seeing a lot of down values at the moment alongside the general uncertainty in the market over the direction of interest rates and inflation,” he said. “

That means looking at serviceability around the loan. Can our clients still afford it? What do the exits look like now? What impact does that have on pricing? These are current challenges in the market.”

But overall confidence inside Bluecroft is high.

“Our business and team is growing all the time and we’ll be looking to celebrate our growth with brokers, clients & partners who have worked with us in 2025. The future is exciting for Bluecroft!” Gandy says.

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