Scottish Widows has arranged its first loan through intermediary Lloyds Commercial Finance, providing a 10-year facility to Custodian REIT.
The life assurance arm of Lloyds Group entered the market for long-term loans earlier this year using its parent as the sole arranger on deals of between seven and 30 years.
The Custodian facility sees the REIT take a £20m facility out to August 2025 at a fixed rate of 3.9% per annum in cost.
The deal is typical of the style of deal that Scottish Widows is trying to capture as it falls into the £20m to £100m range.
In doing these deals the insurer hopes to take market share from the likes of AXA, M&G and MetLife in long-term fixed-rate loans.
In addition, the arrangement with Lloyds’ commercial lending team allows the bank to retain clients which would otherwise have been turned away to other lenders.
The Custodian facility takes its loan-to-value ratio up to 20.9% and will be used for acquisitions.
