Cover
The Old Bailey
Blemain Group has been in bridging for forty years through four recessions and multiple market shifts. Sarah Davidson finds out what it’s doing to stay ahead of the game
If there was a granddaddy in the bridging market Manchester- based Blemain Group would be it. It will have been around for 40 years next year. Its processes, products and people are everywhere in the short-term market. It has been the model that many lenders starting up have chosen to follow partly because so many of its people have gone to other lenders and taken with them the skills and experience learned at Blemain Group. Gary Bailey, 44 and director at the group, is one member of staff who remains dedicated to Blemain Group though. He’s been with the bridging lender for over fifteen years. “If you look at a lot of the lenders and brokers out there in the market Blemain Group has been a very good breeding ground for them,” says Bailey. “There’s so much talk about driving rates down but actually bridging has always been about delivering the finance. Doing what you say you’re going to. That’s central to Blemain Group and it’s kept us going all this time. We’ve also lent sensibly in the past and stuck to our core beliefs.” Doing what you say you’re going to is simple, says Bailey. Speed. Flexibility. Delivery. These are the three keys. Everything the lender says it is about centres
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around these principles and in the main brokers and distributors will tell you the same thing. Lancashire Mortgage Corporation – the subsidiary through which Blemain Group does the majority of its bridging business – is often hailed as one of the market’s most dependable lenders.
Blemain Group is also one of
the few lenders that does bridging across all sectors including commercial, residential, first or second charge, Consumer Credit Act regulated and Financial Services Authority regulated. But that doesn’t mean it’s all things to all people. If your client needs £17m up front forget it. Blemain Group isn’t your bag. But if your client needs between £26,000 and £1,000,000 there’s a good chance the lender will help you find a way to structure the case so it works. It comes back to those four decades, claims Bailey, who
CV
1984 Sales assistant in retail group 1991 Customer account manager, branch manager and regional manager, HFC Bank 1997 National sales manager, Blemain Group 1999 Head of sales and marketing, Blemain Group 2006 Group director, Blemain Group
acknowledges that there have been distinct changes to the short-term market. “We have been around the block
a few times. Obviously, that gives us experience, knowledge and confidence that by sticking by our core beliefs we are able to support the market through difficult times. We’ve been through three or four significant recessions now as a business and although the current recession is unprecedented with the capital markets closing, history tells us that the market goes in cycles and it will shift again.”
PEOPLE CHANGE Part of that shift is the type of lending done short-term. Bailey talks about a “shift in the demographics of customers” because of the natural fallout from bank lending. There are more customers falling outside of criteria offering bridging a significant opportunity. “These are good customers,”
says Bailey. “Just because they fall outside of bank criteria doesn’t mean they have bad credit it just reflects that the banks have moved away and still have very tight criteria. That fuels specialist sectors and means we’ll pick up very good customers over the next few years who have been declined by the banks.”
Historically customers would
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