Alternative lender to SME housebuilders doubles volumes in six months

Zorin Finance hits £200m lending milestone as growth ramps up post-Brexit.

Zorin Finance hits £200m lending milestone as growth speeds up post-Brexit.

Residential development finance specialist Zorin Finance has doubled its total lending over the past six months. The firm has just completed its largest loan yet. The £26m loan to developer Vision Homes will fund the development of 82 properties in South West London. It was this loan that took Zorin over the £200m mark.

Alternative lenders in the development sector appear to have experienced a widespread spike in deal-flow in the months since Brexit, with high-street banks pulling back. Chirag Shah, CEO of Nucleus Commercial Finance (another alternative lender), recently called Brexit “the best opportunity for us to establish ourselves as a key part in the UK business credit market”.

Launched in 2011, Zorin Finance passed the £100m mark in November 2016. The firm is backed by MW Eaglewood and Sir John Beckwith’s Pacific Investments. Zorin signed a deal with MW Eaglewood in August of last year. In addition to providing loan capital, the fund also acquired a third of the equity in the business.

Zorin has now funded 78 loans, and claims to have sustained no capital losses. Its target borrowers are small to medium sized housebuilders, which it claims have suffered from a serious lack of funding since the 1980s, when they were responsible for 50 per cent of housing production, versus just 15 per cent last year.

“With limited financing a major contributor to the UK’s housing shortage, we aim to support the re-establishment of the SME housebuilding industry to deliver crucial new homes,” said Luke Townsend (pictured), CEO of Zorin Finance. “The combination of our real estate, asset management and technology expertise enables us to deliver a superior service which we believe will help continue to grow our market share for many years to come.”