The European commercial real estate lending specialist completed 28 loans last year, including 10 residential development loans worth a total of around £135m.

Aeriance also provided £61m of bridging loans, which included bridge to planning and bridge to sale. 

Examples of this included a £16m bridge to planning loan for a residential-led, mixed-use scheme in Putney as well as a £15m bridge to planning for an office-to-residential conversion in Canary Wharf. 

Aeriance also financed two multi-million-pound development loans for two major schemes in Manchester.

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The growth in lending comes despite Brexit uncertainty, where Harin Thaker, chief executive of Aeriance, said it had continued to see a strong demand from proven investors and developers to access the alternative lending markets. 

“While we remain mindful of the potential impact of leaving the EU, we have been successful in capitalising on the opportunities this presented in the second half of the year, as traditional lenders retrenched from the market and a number of our competitors reined in their lending appetite.”

Aeriance has continued to support clients across the UK and Europe with senior and mezzanine loans secured against commercial investment properties and development schemes.

The lender also provided a further £26m to developers for student accommodation projects. 

“Our client network continues to attract a healthy pipeline of business with a key focus on residential development, student accommodation development and bridging loans in the UK,” Harin added.

“In addition, we continue to leverage the experience and strong contacts of our team to support clients across a number of jurisdictions in northern and western Europe.
 
“In 2017, we will be actively seeking to increase our exposure to bridging loans, residential and commercial developments providing our investors the yield that they seek.”