Fiduciam accelerates its German lending

Fiduciam, the bridging and development lender, has made a strong start to the year in Germany with substantial progress towards its 2022 lending target of €50m in the country.  Two German loans closed in February for a total amount of €3.25m and Fiduciam’s pipeline includes a further €11.20m of German facilities due to be completed in March.

Fiduciam is the only UK-based bridging lender that caters for the German market.  Its loans in Germany range from €2m to €25m with terms of six months to three years. Interest rates start at 0.60% PCM and LTVs up to 70% are available.

Fiduciam has noticed a marked increase in enquiries for German loans through brokers based in both Germany and the UK.  The firm’s German bridging loans are mainly employed to assist with the acquisition of commercial and residential real estate as well as land.  Local banks are often unable to meet the tight deadlines of the investors and developers, and they frequently prefer to wait for an established track record or a fully worked out project before granting a loan.

For instance, Fiduciam provided a €2.5m loan in February to finance the acquisition of a historic and listed building in Alfeld.  The units are currently rented out to businesses operating in the metal trading, manufacturing and construction sector.  Fiduciam’s loan allows the acquiror to obtain the planning permission required to renovate, upgrade and expand the property.  As the project then takes shape, the borrower is expected to refinance with a local bank.  Without Fiduciam’s loan, the acquiror would not have been able to meet the tight deadlines set by the seller for the transaction.

Fiduciam has an office in Frankfurt to ensure market proximity, however it is notable that a substantial portion of German loan requests arrive through UK intermediaries.  It estimates that around 50% of enquiries arrived via this route since Fiduciam started lending in Germany.  An important number of the loan requests have also involved UK acquirors, often larger commercial real estate operators.

Marieke Eskens, who underwrites all Fiduciam’s German loans, commented: “The German secured lending business entails a number of peculiarities which we can handle efficiently with our platform.  We are able to provide loans within 10 business days from application to drawdown, as we demonstrated last year.”

Henrik Takkenberg, co-founder of Fiduciam, added: “We are very happy to see strong demand for our German bridging product since the end of the pandemic.  Our ability to provide acquisition finance for projects where tight time deadlines need to be respected, and where first a transformation project needs to be worked out or a track record established before bank finance becomes available, fills a void in the market.”