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A commercial real estate financier has left NAB to help another home loan lender drive its commercial real estate loan platform.
After 33 years at the major bank, Andy Balzan has joined Pepper Property, a division of the Pepper Group. His previous position was general manager, property and diversified industrials and he his new role will see him as divisional director of capital solutions.
His role will have a key focus on development finance, which he believes is a product becoming more difficult to obtain from the major banks.
Pepper Property has dealt in occupier and project advisory for more than 25 years in Australia and has expanded its platform offering to the provision of debt and equity solutions across all real estate sectors.
Nick Jacobson, group head of Pepper Property said, “We are delighted with the appointment of Andy, who has an outstanding track record in Australian commercial property lending.
“He will boost Pepper’s best in class third party large loan management and servicing and advisory capabilities to continue to provide an end to end first mortgage platform capitalised by highly credible, institutional non-bank lenders.”
Pepper identifies areas of the market that are under-served by traditional lenders and provides a genuine alternative for professional commercial real estate investors and developers.
Balzan added, “There are significant opportunities for Pepper to build relationships with investors and developers and become an active long term financier in the commercial property sector and a meaningful alternative to the major banks and non-bank property lenders.
“The fundamentals in most sectors of the commercial property sector are good, with strong levels of liquidity, continuing growth in the economy and improving confidence. It is a very good time for Pepper to be expanding its platform in the Australian property finance market.”
Pepper Property currently provides large stretch senior development finance and term loans from $50million to $300million.
Its expanded commercial real estate platform aims to provide a range of commercial property finance products, including first mortgage loans of $10million to $30million to developers in the mid-cap market, as well as flexible term and bridging loans for income producing value add and shorter WALE commercial assets throughout major Australian cities and metropolitan markets.
Balzan said, “Pepper Property’s first mortgage platform will look to take advantage of an identified gap in the market, whereby traditional lenders have reduced appetite for term debt and very few non-banks are able to provide debt at competitive rates.”
