SLI enters commercial real estate debt market

By Bridging Loan Directory 20th September 2013

Standard Life Investments has confirmed its plans to enter the commercial real estate debt market, building on over 50 years’ experience in the commercial lending market in Canada.

Complementing its existing capabilities in real estate and fixed income, Standard Life Investments will initially run a CAD250m segregated mandate on behalf of Standard Life Assurance Limited. The strategy will at the outset focus on good quality senior secured loans in the UK market.

David Paine, head of real estate at Standard Life Investments, said:

“The real estate lending market across Europe continues to evolve and has grown over the last few years. Interest from institutions in investing in real estate debt has increased significantly as they seek to diversify both their real estate and fixed income portfolios whilst maintaining and often enhancing yields and risk adjusted returns. This significant development is a natural expansion of our existing, long and well established commercial real estate lending business in Canada, which has been in operation since the early 1960s.

“Our lending strategy will be underpinned by our leading in-house research process and follow our Focus on Change philosophy. By bringing Standard Life Investments’ robust and repeatable investment principles to bear on the real estate debt market, I am confident that we will be able to identify an attractive portfolio of suitable, profitable investment opportunities, which will provide clients with a stable and compelling risk adjusted return.”

Standard Life Investments recently announced the appointment of Neil Odom-Haslett as head of commercial real estate lending and plans to start making funding available for projects in Q4 2013. Odom-Haslett, who has 31 years of experience in commercial real estate and corporate lending across a broad range of roles both in the UK and across other European markets, is responsible for all aspects of the Standard Life Investments commercial real estate lending platform.