OakNorth Bank completes £50m transaction with returning client Hayfield

By Bridging Loan Directory 20th February 2020

OakNorth Bank – the UK bank powered by OakNorth – has completed a debt finance deal of £50m to returning client Hayfield, one of the UK’s leading housebuilders.

With over 100 years of combined industry experience, the Solihull-headquartered property developer has established a strong reputation for providing high quality homes to suit all tastes and requirements, be it providing community facilities or supplying flexible living spaces. The developer will use the bespoke finance package from OakNorth Bank, arranged by London-based Reality Wealth Ltd, to accelerate its growth ambitions, enabling it to deliver 500 homes per annum over the coming 36 months. Hayfield’s central strategy is to be customer centric and to deliver higher quality homes with significantly better specifications than the rest of the market, while respecting environmental goals. This has led to an increase in appraised sales values, demonstrating customer preference for a quality product.

This latest deal follows OakNorth Bank’s previous transactions with Hayfield that saw the financing of their first projects – the acquisition and development of three sold out residential sites in Stratford-upon-Avon, Great Bourton and Hallow.

Mark Booth, Managing Director of Hayfield said:

“This new capital structure will enable Hayfield to quickly lose the newcomer badge and will allow us to realise our aspiration to become an established medium-sized institutional quality housebuilder of note. We are now gearing up for a period of rapid expansion, not just in the counties that we are currently operating in – Warwickshire, Oxfordshire, Worcestershire and Bedfordshire. We will be bringing a number of new sites to the market in Cambridgeshire and Wiltshire, which offers all the attributes we look for when acquiring land. Over the next 12 months we anticipate delivering 210 luxury homes.”

Priya Chauhan, Debt Finance Director at OakNorth Bank, commented:

“Given that Hayfield’s land requirements for 2020 have already been secured, together with 50 per cent of 2021’s land, it’s clear that the business will continue to grow in strength. Mark and his team have built a highly impressive business, with all staff members sharing a common goal to deliver superior products to the property market. We look forward to working with Hayfield on future transactions, as we look to reinforce our own appetite to support UK housebuilders with structured debt finance solutions.”

Ben Barbanel, Head of Debt Finance at OakNorth Bank, added:

“Once again, we’ve thoroughly enjoyed working with the fantastic and multi-talented team at Hayfield. Their passion for customer service and build quality is what really impresses us, alongside their diligence and ambition of being the best”.