OakNorth Bank lends £9.4m to Care Concern Group to acquire a care home in Birmingham

By Bridging Loan Directory 14th January 2020

OakNorth Bank – the UK bank powered by OakNorth – has provided a £9.4m loan to Care Concern Group, one of the UK’s most highly-regarded care home operators for dementia and general nursing. The capital will enable Care Concern Group to acquire Willowbrook Care Home in Birmingham – a purpose-built home with 75 units spread across two buildings. The care home improved its rating from “Good” to “Outstanding” in 2018 and experiences higher-than-average occupancy rates – 99% vs between 87-93% across the rest of the West Midlands.

To date Care Concern Group has borrowed C. £40m from OakNorth Bank to support its expansion. Established in 2005, Alpha Real Capital is an investment services group focused on income security from real assets. It invests in asset‑backed income from real estate, infrastructure, and lending, with an emphasis on long income and inflation protection, and has over £2 billion of assets under management.

Manpreet Johal, CEO of Care Concern Group, said:

“We’re excited to work with Deepesh and the rest of the OakNorth team for a second time this year. They have once again been incredibly supportive, working closely with Alpha Real Capital to ensure we were able to take advantage of this exciting opportunity to acquire a leading care home in Birmingham. With this purchase we’ll be able to provide an even higher standard for dementia and general nursing care facilities in the city and help reduce its 240-bed footfall.”

Deepesh Thakrar, Senior Director of Debt Finance at OakNorth Bank said:

“The West Midlands’ supply of care homes is lower than most other regions in the UK which is why it experiences such high average occupancy rates. This deal represented the opportunity to once again support a brilliant business and management team who have been able to build a portfolio of over 80 sites with an average of 87% occupancy across them. This is a sector we understand and are keen to support more deals in, so it’s great to have a returning customer in the Care Concern Group.”