OakNorth, the digital bank for entrepreneurs, by entrepreneurs, has partnered with Lloyds on a £445m club loan to SGS Group, to refinance four major shopping centres across the UK.

The four sites are: Lakeside in Essex, atria in Watford, Victoria Centre in Nottingham, and Braehead in Glasgow. The four shopping centres, spread across 4.6m sq. ft, have a catchment population totalling 9.4m and boast an average occupancy rate of 93%.

Each site offers a diverse offering of retail, food & beverage and leisure attractions, with stand-out tenants consisting of some of the biggest international and national brands, including Next, Primark, Boots and H&M.

Commenting on the transaction, Jaap Tonckens, non-executive chairman of SGS Group, said: “These leading retail and leisure assets have gone from strength to strength over the past four years.

“The overwhelming support for the recapitalisation reflects this very strong performance and investor confidence in prime shopping centres. 

“We were impressed by OakNorth’s expert knowledge of the UK’s commercial real estate sector throughout the entire transaction.

“I look forward to being a part of the next phase of the SGS journey to build upon the achievements to date.”

Max Saidman, Director of Debt Finance at OakNorth, added: “This transaction represented OakNorth with an attractive opportunity to back four significant and highly successful retail assets.

“All four sites have seen robust year-on-year growth to footfall and occupancy rates, reflecting the positive consumer demand for shopping centres in the South East, Midlands, and Scotland.

“Furthermore, with UK consumer confidence rising to its highest level in more than two years earlier this year, we see the attractiveness of these sites getting stronger moving forward.”

For more information, go to: oaknorth.co.uk/business-loans/real-estate/