Specialist bridge lender Hilco Real Estate Finance (HREF) has seen a record month of lending in February, delivering three deals worth over £43.8 million across the UK.
The hat trick of deals, secured against assets in Leeds, London and Wakefield, support developers and entrepreneurs right across the country to leverage their portfolio for exit or refinancing and are a continuation of the HREF strategy that saw over £200 million deployed last year.
“A record month in Q1 on the back of such a strong maiden year is a great start to 2025 and speaks to the volume of good deals we are seeing with high quality assets to lend against, both in London and especially in regions right across the UK,” Max Lewis, chief investment officer of HREF, said.
The three February deals include lending secured against a block of serviced apartments and a block of high-end residential apartments, an 83-unit residential development and a 74-bed hotel.
“There is a very strong pipeline of £15M – £30M lending opportunities and as we grow our team in regions right across the UK we aim to deploy over £300M of our own capital in 2025,” Lewis said. “Having certainty of our own funds is proving to be advantageous at a time when getting deals over the line against working assets that are intertwined with valuable businesses is a challenge for some of the established lending models.”
“The appetite for borrowing from a pragmatic lending partner, who can swiftly value assets and businesses together in sometimes unusual or complex structures, is clearly very strong above the £3M deal size,” Jamie Jolly, who joined HREF in February to drive growth and access to the lender regionally, said. “Market uncertainty globally, coupled with higher interest rates than a decade ago, have seen more urgent needs to leverage assets and borrow more as well. We are gearing up to be very responsive, and open to less straightforward deals, as long as the quality of the security stacks up.”
