UTB appoints Piragash Sivanesan to deepen specialist developer broker relationships

In the newly-created role, he will focus on “developing and deepening” relationships with brokers and intermediaries who support SME housebuilders, developer and property investor clients in England and Wales.

He will work across the lender’s property development and structured property finance divisions to help identify opportunities for the bank to grow awareness of its services among intermediaries and cultivate new originations.

Sivanesan will be assisted by Libby Vaughan, who joined the lender’s business development and marketing property team in 2021, with additional administrative and marketing support.

Sivanesan joins from Totum Finance, which he founded in 2015 sourcing and structuring a range of real estate finance solutions for developers, housebuilders and investors across the UK.

Prior to that he was a director at Natwest Corporates and Institutions for around four years, and before that an associate director at Lloyds Bank for around eight years.

Adam Bovingdon, head of property development at United Trust Bank said: “Piragash brings a huge amount of experience from both sides of the real estate finance industry and the property development and structured property finance teams will benefit from his focus on developing our intermediary relationships.

“We have maintained the momentum from our record year in 2021 and continued to develop our support of housebuilders and intermediaries across England and Wales.”

He added: “Our loan commitments now support the delivery of around 6,000 new homes at any one time and we have the ambition and capability to increase that further. We are looking to continue that growth by increasing and deepening our relationships with brokers specialising in development and real estate investment finance.”

Sivanesan said: “UTB is a long established and well-funded retail bank wholly committed to supporting housebuilders, developers and real estate investors. UTB appreciate the value intermediaries add when helping their clients source property finance for development and investment activities.

“Now, with economic and political uncertainty the highest it has been for over a decade, UTB believes that by increasing and strengthening ties with experienced advisors there are opportunities to create relationships which will endure the ups and downs of the economic cycle.”

UTB surpassed £1bn in mortgage lending earlier this year, and it has grown its property development originations team to 28 property development directors and managers.

The lender said that it would expand its division to embed more locally based property development directors, leverage technology to simplify the funding application process and strike up more strategic alliances.

UTB has been growing its team, recently appointing Jon Phillips as credit head for asset finance, Jack Heath as business development manager and Sundeep Patel as director of bridging.