The Hodge Commercial Lending team was delighted to support real estate investor client, Lucent Halo Limited, providing a £5.1m commercial investment facility to support with the acquisition of Hartham Park, an impressive Grade II listed mansion, alongside outbuildings and wider grounds.

Hartham Park is a Georgian manor house built in 1795, located in Wiltshire just north of the town of Corsham. The former country house estate is set in 49.6 acres and has most recently been used as serviced office accommodation. There is approximately 68,000sq ft of accommodation in total, with 70 individual office units and seven private meeting/event spaces across the impressive mansion house, coach house, stables and modern office/reception building.

The purchase was not a straightforward transaction as the property was acquired by Lucent Halo out of a wider business administration. The deal required considerable input from all areas of the Hodge Commercial Lending team including business development, due diligence, credit and portfolio together with our external legal advisers and valuer.

Despite the scale and complexity of the deal, the Commercial Lending team demonstrated their flexibility and commitment to the client with completion taking place in under 10 weeks from receiving first information. Hodge worked closely with the borrower throughout to make sensible commercial decisions that ensured the goals of both parties aligned and that the outcome was successful.

Lucent Halo’s future plans for Hartham Park

An active serviced office accommodation and event business already exists on the Hartham Park site which has been running for several years. Lucent Halo will continue running the established businesses with plans to expand and improve them alongside making improvements to the property and services over the next few years, with full commitment from Hodge over this period.

As the purchase originated from a wider business administration the acquisition has protected existing jobs managing the property with current employees being transferred over to the new company. The purchase will also inject a new lease of life into the property and its associated businesses, making way for new opportunities across marketing, investment and growth and attracting new business to the site alongside supporting existing clients.

Gareth Davies, head of business development for Commercial Lending at Hodge said:
“This is the second transaction we’ve completed together, having built a strong relationship from our first transaction in 2023.

Hartham Park is a fantastic property and affords Lucent Halo a rare opportunity to create a destination location for serviced offices and events in a Grade II Listed mansion house and beautiful surrounding scenery stretching into the Wiltshire countryside.

It has been great to work with Lucent Halo and I look forward to the next one. . .”

Matt Slade of Lucent Halo said:

“It’s been great working with Gareth and the Hodge team again on the acquisition of such a unique property. Purchasing Hartham Park out of a wider business administration did not come without its challenges, but Hodge understood the transaction and supported us throughout taking sensible, commercial views that resulted in a successful outcome all round.

We’ve been particularly impressed with Hodge’s flexibility and commitment to ensuring the deal was completed as quickly as possible, despite the Christmas period. We’d like to thank the whole Hodge Commercial Lending team and hope to partner with them again in the future!”

The Hodge Commercial Lending team would like to thank the following who were integral in making the deal happen:

  • Steve Barrett at South West Business Finance who introduced the deal to Hodge
  • Burgess Salmon – Hodge legal advisers
  • CBRE – valuation

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