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Hodge’s busy Commercial Lending team has revamped its residential investment, Portfolio BTL and development team structure to make sure it can meet the demands of its clients and introducers going into 2021 and beyond. Kevin Beevers, Managing Director for Commercial Lending at Hodge, explains the team’s focus.
2020 has been an unprecedented and uncertain year for all of our clients, introducers, and partners, across all markets. As a lender, we’ve been impressed by the resilience of our clients, and the robust attitude this year’s challenges have been met with by the property sector as a whole. As a business, we’ve also taken the opportunity to review our strategy and structure to make sure we’re best placed to support our existing clients, and well positioned to develop the right type of business that will support our ambitious five-year growth strategy.
At Hodge, our aim has always been to become a long-term lending partner for experienced developers and ambitious investors. We’ve always sought to develop strong relationships with our clients and professional partners by developing bespoke lending solutions to help support their ambitions.
To help us maintain that approach, we’re changing our structure to allow us to focus our resource on supporting our commercial investment customers and growing our lending in residential investment, development, and Portfolio Buy-to-Let lending. This will allow us to utilise the exceptional expertise and experience we’re lucky enough to have within our team at Hodge, and make sure we’re offering a top-class service to support our clients – no matter the external climate.
A key benefit of our new structure is that it opens up an opportunity for ambitious build-to-rent developers who’d like to retain their properties once development is complete. Clients may start with a development loan, before refinancing onto a longer-term residential investment finance option with Hodge – having the dual benefit of saving costs, and maintaining a strong relationship with a trusted lending partner.
Gareth Davies is our Head of Development Finance, supported by Senior Development Finance Managers Greg Pescott and Paul Williams. Going forward, the team will focus on working with experienced residential developers, with a proven track record, looking for bespoke lending solutions. Lending up to £5m, our development loans will help support a range of residential projects – including new builds, conversions, and refurbishments.
Following the successful launch of our Portfolio Buy-to-Let product in 2019, which has appealed to residential investors seeking a flexible approach to managing their portfolio, we’re adding additional resource to the team. We’re also amending our product structure to appeal to investors seeking loans of between £500k and £10m. Andy Button, Head of Investment Finance, will lead the team focused on the execution of new lending, with Jill Woodward also joining as Relationship Manager. Michael Clifford, Head of Buy to Let lending, will provide strategic focus in developing our proposition, product offering, and key third-party relationships – making sure we’re well placed to proactively support residential investors of all sizes. Three other colleagues – Lloyd King, Rachel Preston, and Sophie Bennett – will now also support the team.
While last year presented its challenges, we’re delighted – at Hodge, and as a Commercial Lending team – to introduce this new structure to the market, and are very much looking forward to continuing to work with some excellent new and existing clients, brokers, and professional partners in the near future.
