Royal Bank of Scotland has provided a jv between Ediston Real Estate and Europa Capital with a £93m loan in one of its largest deals in Scotland this year.
The new five-year corporate facility replaces a £150m, seven-year loan put in place in 2007 that was due to expire in July this year.
No pricing has been disclosed for the new facility, which will be used to fund purchases across the UK by the Edinburgh-based investment, development and asset management company, which has a £550m portfolio.
As part of the loan deal, RBS retains a veto right on the sale and purchase of assets traded using funds from the loan.
The facility adds to a very active year for the bank in Scotland, where its year-to-date lending book stands at £873m across circa 200 deals ranging in size from £10m to £30m.
Around two-thirds of this has been lent to Scottish-based clients that invest across the UK, with the remainder to clients that are based outside Scotland but are buying assets north of the border.
Some 35% of RBS’s deal flow has been lent to fund both commercial and residential development, with the balance going into investment.
Stuart Heslop, managing director of real estate finance, Scotland, at RBS, said that circa £110m had been committed to new student accommodation schemes and £400m to the traditional office, retail and investment markets.
Total lending is expected to rise to £1bn by the end of the year, a number that Heslop said would “be up a fair bit” on last year and would feed into the group’s national lending target of £5bn-£6bn, of which London accounted for 30-40%.
