OakNorth Bank completes £20m loan to specialist lending fund

By Bridging Loan Directory 24th September 2019

OakNorth Bank – the UK bank powered by OakNorth – has provided a £20m loan to the RAW Mortgage Fund, a specialist fund providing buy-to-let property loans against residential real estate in the UK.

Founded in May 2015, the RAW Mortgage Fund will use the finance from OakNorth as a liquidity line. The Fund, which has originated over 200 loans since launch at an average valuation of only 48%, aims to provide an attractive and consistent level of dividend income or capital growth through direct mortgage lending on UK residential buy-to-let properties.

Its loans are originated, serviced and actively managed by, RAW Capital Partners, an innovative Guernsey-based asset management group which offers two funds: the RAW Mortgage Fund and the RAW Sterling Cash Deposit Fund – a high interest, highly diversified bank deposit fund which invests solely in a range of bank deposits and certificates of deposit with high-quality banking institutions.

Tim Parkes, Managing Director and Lead Fund Manager, RAW Mortgage Fund, said:

“It was a pleasure to work with Mo and the team – OakNorth Bank has done a fair amount of property lending itself so has a great understanding of the sector, the performance of property assets and can structure a facility which is suitable for our fund.”

Mohith Sondhi, Senior Director, Debt Finance at OakNorth, added:

“The RAW Mortgage Fund’s directors have over 100 years combined experience between them from a variety of disciplines including: banking, asset management, broking, insurance and accounting. This experience has clearly paid off as they’ve been able to provide very consistent returns to investors, provided from the interest payable on mortgage loans, since the Fund’s launch in May 2015. With a heavily diversified portfolio backed by the UK residential property market, we look forward to watching the Fund’s continued growth and working with Tim and Richard on future transactions.”