Tenn Capital’s first half of 2023 can be characterised as strange and turbulent. Our market fluctuated throughout the year, going from being quiet and slow-moving initially to finishing with our most successful month in June with just over £26 million lent.
Borrowers held off on moving forward with deals due to significant uncertainty, mainly in the short term’s interest rate velocity. Still, we are very pleased with the progress accomplished this year. Particularly because the Oaklands deal we completed earlier this year is now fully bedded in, as well as a growing presence in Jersey and Gibraltar, which is rapidly accelerating.
Since we started deploying capital a little over 18 months ago, Tenn Capital has lent close to £200 million. We lend anywhere that wealth congregates, with an average loan size of £5 million, 15 jurisdictions, lasting on average 15 months.
One of Tenn Capital’s biggest adjustments as the year progressed was adapting to a considerable rise in origination. As much as we would like to attribute this to our outstanding marketing team (and we do), most of it is due to a fundamental shift in the BTL market. Many of these properties’ affordability calculations have been thrown out, therefore the next obvious place for these deals to go is to the bridge market. This poses a philosophical challenge for many lenders since platforms must consider what type of lender they want to be. Because the exit strategy in many of these deals is marginal, reviewing this increased deal flow has taken a significant amount of time.
Whilst there is still a lot of tangible uncertainty for the rest of this year, Tenn Capital’s outlook for the second half of 2023 is optimistic for more transformations, arguably more so than our competitors. However, given that the majority of interest rates have already risen, there is still potential due to lowered expectations. Whilst difficult to predict changes in the bridging market for the rest of the year, managing the traditional BTL deals will continue to be our biggest challenge, along with falling property values. We will remain focused on our core offering whilst being selective in funding outstanding deals from across the spectrum. We have some extensive new funding which we will discuss in greater detail in the coming weeks as we look to expand our platform.