Lender backed by the Richardson family hits £100m milestone

Specialist development finance lender Magnet Capital, which last year announced the Richardson family as its funding partner, has reached £100m of new development enquiries in their first four months since its launch.

The newly launched lender has been targeting the development finance market below £1m and it says its pipeline has seen a steady growth, despite the continued uncertainty in the market.

CEO and co-founder Ashley Ilsen said: “It just goes to show how far being a true specialist provider can take you. The Magnet Capital team have decades of development finance experience and this has been vital in launching a new lender in a tricky market. We market ourselves as a finance partner and I think that in today’s market developers are more interested in working in a funding partnership, rather than with a traditional, ‘unapproachable’ lender. We’re seeing a wonderfully mixed type of enquiries – from new builds to barn conversions and everything in between.”

The Richardson family, the West Midlands developers who built Merry Hill Shopping Centre, have property interests around the world.

The family has expanded into a variety of international business interests, mostly in real estate and, more recently, in private equity, focusing on growth capital.