Pure Commercial Finance secures £2.5m second charge bridging loan

Pure Commercial Finance saved a multimillion-pound development by sourcing £2.5 million of funding in just three days.

The client, an experienced property developer who wishes to remain anonymous, had a large site with planning permission for multiple homes.

An existing lender had taken a charge out on the land to fund the project up to that point, but further finance was needed to complete the job to the developer’s high-quality standards. The finance was secured, but despite loan documents already being issued, the lender pulled out at the last minute.

The developer – who needed £2.5 million of funding in a matter of days to prevent the development collapsing – approached Ben Lloyd of Pure Commercial Finance to save the project despite its very short turnaround time and a valuation which only covered the first charge amount.

Pure needed a new lender that would take a second charge behind the existing debt and would look at the overall merit of the land value and the financial project, rather than the previous valuation.

With few lenders that Pure could turn to and rely upon to deliver, the Cardiff-based brokerage approached Bushell Investment Group (BIG) which had shown the Pure team a proven track record of delivery in these types of situations.

The average industry turnaround time is around three weeks for second charge loans, but Pure completed the deal within three working days.

“Bushell Investment Group is an absolutely outstanding lender for complex jobs, especially in a time sensitive situation,” said Ben Lloyd, managing director of Pure Commercial Finance.

“I can tell that the BIG team worked as fast as humanly possible and that they wanted to prove that they could get this deal done. I worked very closely on this deal with Lee Bushell, the founder and principle of BIG, to make the deal happen.”

He concluded: “Even though there wasn’t a second valuation, which could turn off many lenders, BIG were comfortable with their own research that the asset was worth significantly more and decided to progress with the loan without the need for a new valuation.”