Lloyds workout lieutenant departs as bank’s property deleveraging nears endgame

One of the senior figures in real estate workout in Lloyds Banking Group’s business support unit has left the bank to set up his own business, Real Estate Capital can reveal.

Andrew Wilson, head of the real estate solutions team, has departed from the UK bank and is understood to be establishing a new business in workout advisory and real estate financing and investment, operating principally in the UK and Ireland.

The solutions team is now headed by Joe Green who will report to managing director and head of corporate real estate for the business support unit, Richard Dakin.

A statement from Dakin said: “During his four years with the bank, Andrew has played an integral part in the successful deleveraging of the bank’s non-core corporate property loan book. Andrew’s leadership of the solutions team saw it originate a number of innovative initiatives and we wish him every future success.”

Since the business support unit was established in 2009 it has recouped around £24bn from the part public-owned bank’s distressed real estate exposures. Lloyds now has only around £6bn of problem positions remaining, for which workout plans are in place for the majority. The BSU property team is steadily reducing in number from its 450 peak to around 200 now.

Wilson joined the bank’s real estate deleveraging department at the start of 2010 from Land Securities where he had been business development director. The solutions team, or property team as it is sometimes known, which Wilson headed is responsible for providing the caseworkers or bankers dealing with loans with detailed property advice. It was also central to coming up with new initiatives for deleveraging such as sector specific asset management platforms and non-performing loan portfolio sales.

Lloyds remaining non-core property book includes around £700m of small, regional performing loans, around £320m with Rocco Forte Hotels, about £1.1bn to Nick Leslau and Mike Brown’s Secure Income REIT, housebuilders Gladedale and Keepmoat, which are being sold, and the £536m Project Avon, which the bank has agreed to sell to Cerberus Capital Management.