Station Hill

CHALLENGE

Station Hill is a 6.5-acre regeneration site next to the railway station in Reading town center. It is one of the UK’s largest development schemes outside of London and was acquired by LMGT in June 2018.

Our clients sought a development loan to facilitate the construction of 600 private and affordable BtR homes, as part of the first phase of the overall £750m, mixed-use development. The first homes will be ready for occupation from the end of 2022.

Savills were instructed during the first national Covid-19 lockdown, creating the challenge of navigating Covid-19 restrictions whilst still meeting our clients’ requirements.

SOLUTION

Savills OCM was originally mandated with the intention of forward funding the project, before the consortium changed strategy and decided to build out the project themselves.

Savills Capital Advisors ran a comprehensive debt process to seek the most suitable and competitive debt package for the consortium.

A number of financing offers were received, at various leverage points and with several structures. Savills advised on the optimum debt structure, which resulted in both Senior and Junior debt being secured.

RESULTS

Savills put in place a unique security structure and our optimisation of the scheme with revised planning led to the upsizing of the facility. We secured a £138.7m development loan, consisting of facilities from AIG and Homes England.

This deal was the largest single-site financing in the BtR market that Homes England has closed. The development is the first BtR Multifamily project for LMGT and this is the first development facility secured by LMGT.