FINANCE: Gatehouse Bank has completed its maiden real estate financing deal and made a hat trick of hires to expand its property team.
The London-based Shariah-compliant investment bank acted as senior financier to provide a £11.7m residential development loan to a joint venture between Princeton Property Partners and Resolution Property.
The deal to the partners, who are converting a Fitzrovia office building into eight flats and a shop, is the first loan from Gatehouse since former CBRE head of UK and EMEA debt advisory Natale Giostra joined as head of real estate finance in November.
Gatehouse has now hired three more staff to support Giostra, who said the team is “in a strong position to originate attractive financing deals” and is working on a “healthy pipeline of opportunities worth more than £500m.”
The fully staffed real estate finance team includes Nick Westoby from RBS, Arnaud Schaller from Credit Agricole and Eduardo Martin from Banco Popular Español.
Gatehouse is a senior balance sheet financier that provides loans of between £5m and £100m at LTVs of up to £85% in the UK, France, Germany, Benelux, Spain and Italy.
It will consider lending on office, retail, industrial/logistic, hotel properties and residential development. It will also participate in club deals or syndication, taking vertical slices or a junior position.
The shariah-compliant lender will not lend on properties let to pubs, casinos and banks.
Giostra said the deal would “be the first of many innovative deals which Gatehouse will finance”, adding that it was completed within two months.
bridget.oconnell@estatesgazette.com
