Venn Partners, Aprirose back CNM’s Tolworth Tower

Venn Partners has made its first senior loan in London’s southwest with a £42m facility on CNM Estates’ Tolworth Tower in Surbiton.

The facility reflects a loan-to-value (LTV) of almost 80% on CNM’s purchase price of £53.5m. It comprises a £31m acquisition loan and an £11m capital expenditure component.

Aprirose Real Estate Investment has also provided a mezzanine facility, its first ever deployment of mezzanine finance.

The senior loan is Venn’s second significant deployment in the past year and follows a £97.5m development facility to housebuilder HUB for the construction of its 360-home Hoola scheme in London’s Royal Docks.

“We’re looking to deploy around £20m-£70m on strong, well located assets that have the potential for growth underlined by strong cashflows,” said Paul House, managing partner responsible for real estate at Venn.

“Kingston upon Thames is experiencing strong economic growth, Tolworth in particular, with a new mainline train station coming.”

Venn is prepared to lend up to 80% LTV on “the right property at the right price”, said House.

Built in the 1960s, Tolworth Tower is occupied by half-a-dozen tenants including a 132-bed Travelodge hotel, Marks and Spencer Simply Food and HM Revenue & Customs.

CNM is applying for planning permission to convert part of the existing tower into residential flats as well as build four new buildings on the site.

The south London-focused developer bought the 22-storey tower last October from Stevenor Investments.

“We went out to all sorts of different lenders and got very good traction from a lot of them,” said Natale Giostra, head of treasury and capital markets at CNM Estates. “But Venn and Aprirose were the two lenders that best understood this value-add proposition.”