You have recently joined Seneca Bridging, what is your role?
I have joined Seneca Bridging with a remit to increase the business we receive from introducers. Prior to my joining Seneca, I met Seneca co-founder Steve Charnock on several occasions to understand more about the growth plans. I was excited by the prospects and couldn’ t wait to get going! The bridging business at Seneca has seen impressive performance to date and I’ m eager to do my part in furthering its development.
Who are you looking to work with?
Professional introducers, sometimes known as brokers. The term‘ introducer’ is a generic industry name that describes mortgage brokers, commercial finance brokers, IFA’ s, accountants and surveyors, all of whom will introduce business to Seneca Bridging. They will play an extremely important part in our growth.
What is your background?
My commercial finance career began with Bank of Scotland where I managed the bank’ s offering in the retail and leisure property sectors. I joined Merrill Lynch as Regional Manager and spent 7 years in senior management roles, ending up as Vice President of Debt and Equities before moving to GE Capital as the Sales Director for their Home Lending division. I led GE’ s response to the 2008 financial crisis and successfully delivered a major change programme to reduce their exposure to the sub-prime residential market. I left GE to establish my own commercial finance consultancy, in which time my reputation and knowledge of the intermediary community grew to the point where I was eventually enticed back into employment. I joined Seneca from Amicus PLC where I helped them become the largest player in the short-term lending sector with annual completions running at £ 650m +.
What are the trends that have led to the demand for bridging?
The main reason is there is still a lack of bank lending in this sector. Whilst there are still a small number of lenders who will look at long term commercial mortgages( 10 / 15 years plus), none of them currently offer short term bridging loans and are unlikely to do so, as it is a sector that they currently have little appetite to get involved in. In fact, debt forgiveness( where a bank is looking to get a loan off their books and is prepared to offer their client a discount to refinance elsewhere) is another driver and many introducers have taken advantage of this. Also rising property prices have attracted more developers and investors back into the property market. The influence of the introducers should also not be underestimated as they have helped provide those needing finance with the access to bridging finance. The bridging industry completed over £ 4.5bn of loans last year.
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