The corporate property finance team at Higgs & Sons has successfully handled the refinancing of a multi-million pound industrial and office portfolio belonging to one of the fastest growing property development and investment companies in the Midlands.
The Higgs & Sons team, led by property partner Sara Shepherd and assisted by Damian Beard of the corporate banking team, advised the directors of Brierley Hill based Hovi Developments Ltd throughout the remortgage of its portfolio to Lloyds Bank Commercial Banking.
Hovi Developments own a number of assets across the West Midlands, including multi let, multi tenanted facilities on a number of sites. Formed in 2002, the expanding company was looking for a new finance deal, and with the help of Higgs & Sons solicitors managed to move their entire property portfolio from RBS to Lloyds in just eight weeks.
Hovi’s core business is the acquisition, development and long-term ownership of well-located industrial and commercial property across the Midlands, including estates in Wolverhampton, Rowley Regis, Oldbury and Droitwich. The company specialises in transforming and adding value to industrial and office accommodation in need of refurbishment and delivering quality business environments for companies of all sizes.
Ian Houghton, director at Hovi, said: “We have used other lawyers in the past, but Higgs & Sons are a league ahead of all of them.
“Moving banks is not something you do lightly, but Higgs did a great job for us.
“They know us, they know our business and we know them. We have one point of contact, Corporate Partner Susheel Gupta, who steers us in the right legal direction of everything we need – and as such we are now using Higgs & Sons for all of our legal requirements.”
Sara Shepherd from Higgs & Sons said: ““It was very exciting to work with Hovi in putting their new loan facility in place, and the Higgs team all worked together to ensure that the tight timescales were met.”
Mike Murphy, Head of Property for Lloyds Bank Commercial Banking in Birmingham, said: “Hovi Developments is an extremely successful property company that we had been talking to for a while. We are very pleased to have won the firm’s business mandate against strong competition and look forward to a long partnership with the company.
“We are committed to investing in local businesses such as Hovi Developments as they work to achieve their ambitious objectives for expansion, and this is backed up by a pledge to grow our lending to small and medium sized companies by £3billion net over the next three years.”
Higgs & Sons is based in the heart of the Black Country at the Waterfront Business Park in Brierley Hill. The growing team now boasts 100 plus specialist lawyers available to support clients in a comprehensive range of business and private sectors.
PIC CAP: Pictured, from left: Ben Houghton (Hovi Developments Ltd), Damian Beard (Higgs & Sons), Ian Houghton (Hovi Developments Ltd), Sara Shepherd (Higgs & Sons), Mike Murphy (Lloyds Bank plc), David Clowes (Hovi Developments Ltd), and Mark Cadwallader (Lloyds Bank plc).