Six new lenders enter UK commercial property market

By

Six new lenders – including insurance firm AIG and fund manager Legal & General – entered the UK commercial property market in the first half of the year, according to Savills.

The other lenders to throw their hats into the ring included GE Capital, Jordan International, Jefferies International and Chalkhill Partners.

Savills also added four new names to its database of ‘big-ticket’ lenders, including AXA, M&G Investments, HSBC and Bawag.

Savills defines as big-ticket lenders those with new lending of more than £75m (€85.5m) in the previous six months, and typical loan sizes more than £20m.

William Newsom, head of valuation at Savills UK, said the additions were “extremely positive” news for the market.

“Many of these banks have meaningful quantities of money to lend, albeit most of the German Pfandbrief-backed banks find loan to values (LTVs) above 50% challenging,” he said.

He also said many banks were currently being constrained by regulatory and capital adequacy issues, notably under Basel III, with a result that there was “downward pressure on LTVs and upward pressure on interest rate margins”.

He added: “Margins probably have increased by 25 basis points over the last quarter, albeit against a background of continuing low cost of money.”

Savills’ bigger-ticket property lenders list now includes:

  • Aareal
  • Aviva
  • AXA
  • Barclays Bank
  • Bawag
  • Bayern LB
  • Deka Bank
  • Deutsche Bank
  • Deutsche Hypo
  • Deutsche Pfandbrief
  • Eurohypo
  • Helaba
  • HSBC
  • ING REF
  • Landesbank Berlin
  • Met Life
  • M&G Investments
  • Royal Bank of Scotland
  • Santander
Google NewsFOLLOW ON GOOGLE NEWS