Octane Capital provides £7.4m loan for office conversion

By Bridging Loan Directory 8th September 2017

‘Product-less’ lender, Octane Capital, today announced the completion of a £7.4m loan to three non-standard borrowers — one BVI-based company and two UK companies —all with the same UBO (Ultimate Beneficial Owner).

£6.7m of the loan was provided on Day One to enable the borrower to acquire — at 100% of the purchase price — a large office in Southend with planning for 140 units. As part of the loan, two other sites were used as additional security.

One of the securities was an office in East London with planning permission to convert to 24 flats. A buyer had already been found with the completion of the sale dependent on the flats being built out. To enhance its security, Octane provided a £720,000 development loan for the works to be completed.

But as the two existing securities did not give enough equity, a third asset was selected as a make-weight. This was an office in Hastings with full planning permission granted for a number of residential units.

The loan, introduced by Sammy Kalms of Kalms Property Finance, was completed in just over a month, a full week prior to the borrower’s deadline.

As the main UBO lived in Jakarta, and had previously met his London-based solicitors, Octane were happy for the client to sign the legal documentation via Skype video conference.

Sammy Kalms, Director, Kalms Property Finance, commented:

“Octane were integral to the success of what was a very complex loan given the nature of the securities and structures involved. Their common-sense approach, proactive lending mentality and experience meant they were able to manage the process efficiently and within the timeframe required.”

Matt Smith, pictured, Director of Risk, Octane Capital, added:

“This is about as far from vanilla lending as you can get, but it’s the kind of large and highly bespoke loan we want to work on at Octane. It involved multiple borrowers, multiple securities and multiple moving parts including a development element and land with planning permission. The teamwork required to structure a transaction of this size and nature was exceptional, with our own Alex Tyrwhitt and Matt Bird operating seamlessly alongside the exceptional Seddons team fronted by Simon Noonoo.”