Omni Partners launches bridging finance fund

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This fund is not connected in anyway with ‘Omni Capital’ or ‘Omni Capital Partners Ltd’, the Watford-based short and medium-term lender owned by CPC Group.

Omni Partners has launched the Omni Secured Lending Fund I, enabling institutional investors to directly access the short-term secured property lending market within the UK.

The fund‘s investment proposition is to take advantage of the vacuum created by banks withdrawing from short-term property lending in the UK, in order to deliver attractive risk adjusted returns.

The fund focuses on the short end of the lending market whereby lenders are able to obtain an interest rate premium and demand more security in return for issuing lending decisions quickly.

Addressing investor demand, the fund has been structured with a relatively short duration compared with other direct lending products. Investor funds are used to finance loans with a maximum duration of 18 months secured against both residential and commercial properties in the UK. Strict lending requirements are enforced, including a maximum loan-to-value (LTV) of 70 per cent.

Capital Bridging Finance Limited (CBFL) serves as the fund’s captive origination platform and manages the entire lending process. Steve Clark seeded CBFL in 2009 and subsequently integrated it into Omni (as a subsidiary) in November 2013. The existing senior management team at CBFL has over seven decades of experience in the property lending market.

Omni’s founder and head of risk, Steve Clark, said:

“The key characteristics of this strategy are superior asset quality, short tenor and high yield. In addition, CBFL’s track record is a hard track, delivered on actual capital whilst operating as a stand-alone company unlike the paper track records being peddled by some other new launches within the direct lending space. It is these factors that have been attracting investors to this exciting new strategy.”