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RAW Capital Partners head of credit Mark Stevens tells Emily Moore why the company is not a ‘run-of-the-mill’ lender and how its ‘customer-first ethos’ can help it to find solutions
“We are not,” says RAW Capital Partners head of credit Mark Stevens, “your run-of-the-mill lender.”
Indeed, having joined the company last June, following an extensive career in banking and finance, Mark says he has been struck by the company’s customer-first ethos and its nimble and flexible approach to credit applications.
“Most of my experience has been in clearing banks and international private banks, which included 25 years as head of lending,” he explained.
Now, though, Mark is delighted to be in an environment which, he says, “excites and challenges” him every day.
“I couldn’t have asked for a better job,” he said. “As soon as the role came up, it excited me because of the opportunities it offered to help grow the business while building on my previous experience in banking to help customers invest in UK property.”
Indeed, the Channel-Islands-based business specialises in lending on residential property, Mark explains, and is specifically designed to support trust and company structures and Jersey residents, as well as other non-UK residents who want to invest in UK property.
“With lending of nearly £170m, the RAW Mortgage Fund has now been going for nine years and over that time, it has enabled hundreds of customers together with a variety of trust and other structures to realise their property ambitions,” he said.
“We work with a number of Channel Island residents, brokers, trust and company providers who like the idea of investing on the mainland.”
Buy-to-let lenders
Typically, Mark adds, many customers are looking for a one- or two-bedroom newly built apartment in a large town or city.
“While a lot of banks favour investment in prime central London property, that is not our target,” he said. “We have facilitated property purchases in a range of ‘hotspots’ including Manchester, Birmingham and Liverpool, as well as many other towns and cities in the UK. The important considerations for us are the locations, and whether the property is close to schools and local amenities, as this will determine how desirable it would be to someone else if the purchaser decided to sell.”
Admitting that the opportunity to learn about different regions of the UK is one of the elements of the job which he particularly enjoys, Mark also says it is the customers who make his role at RAW Capital Partners so interesting.
“I have already learnt a lot about various UK cities, as we build profiles of each area to see where we are comfortable lending funds, knowing that tenants will quickly and easily be found for each property,” he said. “It’s also great to be working with such a diverse property portfolio, not just in terms of location but also value. We have secured finance for properties valued from £100,000 to £10m plus. While we are always happy to work with high-net-worth clients, it is just as rewarding to assist people who want to make more modest investments.”
Lending in Jersey
In addition to facilitating buy-to-let purchases, RAW Capital Partners offers end-of-development finance and other short-term lending solutions, services which Mark says have particular appeal in Jersey.
“As a developer’s project nears completion and their expensive development finance comes to an end, they need to either repay or renew their original loan,” he explained. “Typically, at the end of the development, they want time to market the property to achieve the best price they can, so we can provide a bridging loan to enable them to repay their development finance while they market the property.
“Similarly, if someone in a large house wants to downsize, it can sometimes take time to sell the original property. In such cases, we can provide a loan enabling them to move into the smaller accommodation straight away.”
With great potential in Jersey and further afield, Mark says he has no doubt that RAW Capital Partners will continue to grow during 2025.
What we do differently
As “conservative lenders”, RAW Capital Partners typically, says Mark, lends “55% of either the property value or purchase price, whichever is lower”, although finance up to 65% loan-to-value can be structured in certain cases.
And while acknowledging that the property market has faced challenges over the past couple of years, Mark is in no doubt that plenty of opportunities remain.
“Most of our customers are professional people who have some cash or liquid assets and want to acquire, for the long term, a buy-to-let property in the UK which will generate some rental income while gaining in value,” he said.
“While the market has been soft recently, there are still lots of opportunities to acquire newly built apartments and I am confident that those opportunities will continue to present themselves during 2025.”
Helping customers to take advantage of those opportunities, he adds, is RAW Capital Partners’ approach.
“While we may be relatively small, we are flexible and we pride ourselves on making quick decisions,” he said. “Typically, a customer will receive a decision within 24 hours of submitting a completed application. This means we can turn things around within a tight timeframe, while continuing to look at each case on its own merits.
“We don’t have a tick-box approach. Some customers are self-employed, others are salaried employees or company directors but each one is assessed individually. Because of that approach, we can often find solutions for people who wouldn’t necessarily meet the more rigid criteria of, say, a major bank.
“We are ambitious,” he added with a smile. “We want to grow in a way which enables us to continue offering a fast and flexible approach, while treating each application on its own merits. That service-first ethos is critical to our success.”
