Bridging loan for Scottish wind turbine development

The Scenario

Our clients are a group of property entrepreneurs who were looking for specialist property finance to take their renewable energy project to the next stage.

The stakes are high in schemes such as these: the land they had bought in Lanarkshire was currently valued at £1.5M. They were looking for a £974K bridging loan to finance the designs, valuations and consultants necessary to put through their planning application to build two wind turbines, a data centre and eco park.

With planning permission granted, the uplift in value would be £14.5 - £16.5M.

After Stage 1, when the eco park is built, the estimated value of the land is £65M, and after Stage 2 when the turbines are in place the project value is in the area of £125M.

The Solution

Despite the scale of the development, this was an attractive proposition for a lender because there had been planning permission in place for the site, which had lapsed.

We secured the one-year bridging loan our clients were looking for at a market rate of 1% a month, with a 2% product fee, and 2% on exit. Their exit is in place: refinancing by specialist London lenders experienced in build projects of this kind.