Fiduciam storms Spanish bridging market with €76 million of loans originated in 2019

By Bridging Loan Directory 20th January 2020

Fiduciam completed its second year of granting bridging loans in Spain, with total loan originations of €76 million in 2019 up from €23 million in 2018. It has now has set a lending target of €100 million in Spain for 2020, despite growing competition.

Fiduciam grants loans in Spain for amounts from €400,000 to €35million with interest rates starting at just 0.70% per month. Fiduciam’s turnaround times for granting bridging loans in Spain rival any seen in the UK with its fastest loan so far taking only ten days to complete.

In 2019 Fiduciam entered new regions in Spain, including as Catalonia and Castilla-la-Mancha. It also doubled the size of its Spanish-market team from four to eight during the course of the year.

Fiduciam has found an incredibly captive market for its bridging solutions in Spain, hence the rapid growth rate of its Spanish business. It is filling a vacuum left by the mainstream banks. Until now, only Madrid-based specialist debt funds were offering a solution, but at substantially higher interest rates than those applied by Fiduciam; whereas Fiduciam uses the same interest rates in Spain that are typical for the UK bridging market.

Fiduciam’s loans in Spain are secured over both residential and commercial property. In the commercial real estate sector Fiduciam has been lending to hotels, restaurants, farms, logistics firms and clinics. In addition to the traditional bridging loan, Fiduciam also has found a healthy appetite for its refurbishment and conversion loan products in Spain.

Fiduciam’s Spanish business consists both of cross-border and purely domestic business. The cross-border business consists primarily of British and German owners of Spanish real estate using bridging loans to extract equity from their properties for their business ventures back in the UK or Germany. The domestic business consists of lending to a wide variety of Spanish borrowers to whom the local banks are closed.

Despite its 30% increase in target for the next 12 months, 2020 looks to be a more challenging year with the overall business climate in Spain deteriorating, the real estate cycle having peaked in some regions and new entrants entering the market.

Cristina Villén, Fiduciam’s originator for Spain, commented:

“We have strong pipeline for the beginning of the year and we are planning to surpass our 2019 lending milestone. There is a large untapped demand for our loans in Spain and we are becoming increasingly well known in the market for our unique offering. Clearly 2020 will be a more challenging year than 2019 but we are entirely ready for it having built a very strong team in 2019.”

Johan Groothaert, Fiduciam’s CEO added:

“We are incredibly proud of our Spanish team. Even though expectations were already high at the outset, we are impressed by the strong uptake of our loan solutions in Spain. Fiduciam’s lending infrastructure is optimised to handle multiple jurisdictions and currencies. We have invested substantial resources in tailoring our loan offering and solutions for the Spanish market, that, together with our investment in our Spanish team is clearly paying off.”