Specialist lender has adapted lending strategy to meet changing market conditions
Despite widespread contraction in the property lending market, Topland continued new loan origination in Q3 2020 with a more agile approach and a broader spread across asset classes.
Its Structured Finance division has recently completed an £8m loan to Aria Resorts for the refinance of three holiday parks in Cornwall. This brings total lending activity for the year-to-date to £150m with the group having set a target of £200m by year-end.
Sol Zakay, chairman and CEO of Topland Group said: “Though we have considerably revised our expectations since the beginning of the year, we still have an appetite to lend and capital to deploy. This means we are looking outside some of the more established sectors in favour of revenue-rich models such as holiday parks.”
A combination of high barriers to entry, multiple revenue streams and a likely continuation of the staycation trend makes holiday parks an attractive asset class with high growth potential. The UK holiday parks industry contributes around £5.3bn GVA to the UK economy and supports 170,000 full-time jobs, according to figures from Deloitte.
As evidence of its commitment to this sector, Topland has provided £125m of debt to operators in the holiday park and park homes industry over the past three years.
Sol Zakay continues: “As an entrepreneurial business, we will always be alert to the right opportunities in our traditional heartlands of prime residential, hotels and offices but, we are also diversifying activity across multiple asset classes offering strong income profiles.”
So far Topland has provided £1.5bn of finance to the real estate sector across 118 loans.
