Octane Capital completes £1M developer exit loan for Cambridgeshire scheme
29 May 2026
Octane Capital has completed a £1M developer exit loan to refinance a five-unit residential scheme in Cambridgeshire for a borrower well known to the business.
The borrower sought the refinance after the drawdown process with the incumbent lender became increasingly restrictive, slowing progress on the scheme. Octane was brought in to support completion of the build programme and, crucially, provide a suitable ‘sale tail’ to allow the properties to be properly marketed and sold. Mark Stephenson, Senior Business Development Manager commented:
‘’This is a perfect Octane developer exit deal; a borrower and scenario deserving of bank-level pricing but approached with an entrepreneurial mindset.’’ That commercial approach took its form in how the valuation was assessed. Jamie Oxley, Senior Structured Finance explained:
“With over £200k of works remaining, many lenders would have approached the scheme using a full residual valuation — which would likely have killed the deal at any workable LTV. We worked closely with the valuer to agree an approach that applied GDV to the units most progressed towards completion, while using a residual valuation only on those further away. In practical terms, this added approximately £300k to the day-one valuation.”
The facility was structured over a 15-month term at 70% LTGDV, providing £1.05M on day one to clear the existing debt, alongside a further £220,000 in staged drawdowns to complete the remaining build works. The deal completed within five weeks, priced at a 5.64% per annum margin with rolled interest.
The deal was introduced to Octane by Pure Structured Finance. Tom Lee, Managing Director of Pure Structured Finance, said:
“Finish and exit aren’t a space every lender is comfortable with, particularly where there are still works outstanding. The key here was taking a practical view of the scheme as a whole, rather than applying a blanket residual approach. Octane engaged constructively with the valuer to reflect the true position of each unit, which ultimately allowed the deal to stack and gave the borrower a clear path to complete and exit.”