Development finance lender BLG sets sights on Birmingham

By Bridging Loan Directory 11th October 2018

This week, BLG Development Finance, the specialist lender, will officially open the latest project of Birmingham based developer, Prosperity Developments. Given a reported lack of development finance available to house builders across the UK, principal lender BLG explains why it is focussing its funding attention on Birmingham and, in particular, partnering with local property developers like Joe Billingham and his team.

Perry Kurash, Head of Business Development at BLG, said:

“As a lender, it’s our job to identify locations with strong housing sale potential and build relationships with established property developers. The reason Birmingham holds so much appeal for us is three-fold. The city is in growth, having already received significant investment in infrastructure and transport, such as the recent £600m regeneration of New Street. Thousands of new jobs have been created, underpinning the employment and renting/home-owning market. And the ambitious ‘Big City Plan’, aims to deliver thousands more new homes, new jobs and billions in investment. Birmingham certainly has a buzz about it. As a lender we look for potential underpinned with a good market, we have found it here.

Today, we are delighted to sponsor the ‘ribbon cutting’ opening ceremony of “B1, Edward Street”. We were proud to finance this fantastic new build block of 63 apartments conceived and built by Prosperity Developments. We have worked with Joe and the Prosperity team for four years and they possess the ideal qualities we look for in a borrower; proven success at building and selling new homes in their location, drive to deliver a quality product, professionalism at every point and, most importantly, passion for developing fantastic new homes. We congratulate Prosperity on this latest project and look forward to working with them on future schemes.”

Joe Billingham, Chairman and CEO at Prosperity Developments, said:

“As a specialist development finance lender, BLG’s understanding of the planning and property development journey was extremely helpful. As specialists in their field, this experience allowed a true appreciation of the varying needs a development has at every stage of the project. This successful collaboration has delivered a development for Birmingham that we are all very proud of; we look forward to working with BLG again on our upcoming developments.”