OakNorth, the digital bank for entrepreneurs, by entrepreneurs, has provided a £50m of new funding to returning customer and leading entrepreneurial private equity real estate investor, Paloma Capital.

Founded by Joe Froud and Jack Pitman, Paloma Capital has raised over £520m of wholly discretionary capital in three value-add Funds since 2015, mainly from institutional investors across the UK, Europe, and the Middle East. The firm’s investment philosophy is founded on three key pillars; an acute focus on mispricing, an entrepreneurial approach to capex-intensive asset management; and a preference for the majority of its return to come from income.

The £50m of new funding from OakNorth, split across two separate transactions, will be deployed within the firm’s Paloma Real Estate III, following a successful final close of the Fund at which they raised £201m of wholly discretionary equity. Following its launch in November 2022, the Fund has had an opportunistic strategy, investing across sectors and regions, focussing primarily on income-producing, multi-let urban industrial and logistics schemes. It’s asset types include urban logistics, trade counters, open storage and self-storage. OakNorth provided £45m to the fund back in September 2023 to support its growth.

Jack Pitman, Founding Partner of Paloma Capital, commented: “At Paloma, we continue to pride ourselves on our hands-on approach to asset management and our focus on multi-let assets which provide us with the greatest opportunity to create additional value through carefully thought-out and well-executed business plans. Given the experience we had with OakNorth last year when we secured a £45m debt facility following the launch of our third fund, we felt they were the obvious choice. OakNorth’s specialist fund finance operation, led by Mo, is exceptional – they’re experienced and quick and they do what they say they will do.”

Mohith Sondhi, Senior Director of Debt Finance at OakNorth, added: “As a direct result of Joe and Jack’s over 30 years’ of experience in the private equity sector, Paloma continues to be one of the most reputable private equity real estate investors in Europe. With a robust track record spanning almost a decade across all three of its value-add funds, we were once again delighted to support Fund III across these two separate transactions.  We look forward to supporting Paloma Capital on its future growth plans, as we look to continue to develop our expertise in the funds finance space.”