LendInvest secures £150m from Nomura and Magnetar

The property lending platform now has around £1bn in lending firepower.

LendInvest has clinched £150m in lending capital from global investment bank Nomura and investment manager Magnetar.

The money will be used to fund residential development finance, cementing LendInvest’s position in the market.

LendInvest funds its property-backed loans using money from a diverse mix of sources, including a direct investment platform for sophisticated investors, a retail bond programme, Luxembourg-based funds and a number of credit lines.

It already counts Merseyside Pension Fund, Citigroup and an unnamed challenger bank among its institutional investors.

LendInvest specialises in development finance, bridging loans and buy-to-let. It has funded more than £1.5bn in loans to date, helping support the building or renovation of some 5,000 homes across the UK.

With the money contributed by Nomura and Magnetar, LendInvest now has approximately £1bn in total capital for lending.

Christian Faes (pictured), co-founder and CEO of the platform, said in a statement: “LendInvest continues to attract investment from some of the largest and most sophisticated investors globally to our platform.  Development Finance is a key product for us as it complements our dominant position in short-term mortgages, and our expanding Buy-to-Let product, further establishing LendInvest as the ‘one-stop-shop’ for property entrepreneurs. This funding joint venture with Nomura and Magnetar will allow us to continue to grow our development finance product, and to provide much needed funding for SME house-builders across the country.”

In late August, LendInvest became eligible for a kind of FSCS protection, protecting its smaller investors against the platform going bust. It should be noted, however, that those investors are not protected from the risk of loans underperforming – in other words their capital remains at risk.