Europe’s Top 40 Lenders 2019: Do you deserve to make the cut?

We’re already considering which firms should make this year’s list. There’s just over a week to argue why yours should be included.

Our 2019 rundown of the leading lenders in European real estate debt is in the works and we want to hear from you, the property lending community.

Europe’s Top 40 Lenders 2019 will be published in September. The list, now in its sixth year, is a bellwether of the continent’s property finance sector, highlighting the organisations that are making the greatest impact on their targeted segments of the market.

The list is compiled by our editorial team. It is a rigorous process that involves speaking to key industry contacts and debating which lenders deserve a place, in addition to trawling through our archive. But we also want to you to arm us with the knowledge we need to make our decisions.

We invited nominations in May and there is just over a week until they close. We have already heard from some of you, but if you think your organisation should make the cut, now is the time to let us know.

To submit a nomination, email daniel.c@peimedia.com by 12 noon London time on Friday 28 June, with TOP 40 LENDERS in the subject line. The more information we have on your firm’s activities since the 2018 list was published in October, the better placed we will be to make a decision.

This is what we want to know:

• Your European real estate lending volumes for the first half of 2019. These should be broken down as much as possible into types of lending, such as senior, mezzanine and whole loans. The list is not compiled solely according to which organisation lent the most, but volumes – and the types of lending conducted – are important yardsticks.

• Total 2018 European loan volumes, again broken down by types of lending.

• The amount of third-party capital raised for lending since October 2018 – if this is relevant to your business model.

• Your organisation’s highlights since October 2018. These might be changes in strategy, expansion into new markets, appointments of key personnel or interesting lending deals. We want to hear what your firm has done to warrant being on our list.

Last year’s Top 40 demonstrated that the leaders of the pack were still visible, but many were doing slightly less lending because of increased competition for senior loans. The large US investment banks were dominant in the emerging and value-add spaces as they backed their private equity clients’ hunt for value in a low-returns market. There was also huge firepower in private debt, with several managers having raised hundreds of millions of euros to deploy in the lending market.

It will be fascinating to see how Europe’s property lending space has changed over the past year. We look forward to hearing from you.

Email the author: daniel.c@peimedia.com