Bridging Against Company Premises While a Trade Sale Completes

The sale-and-purchase agreement (SPA) is signed. Completion is twelve weeks out. The company still has a tax bill, a shareholder buy-out or a working-capital hole that cannot wait for the funds to land.

The borrower here is the company itself, or its owners. Security is the trading premises the company owns, or a property held by a director, and the loan runs until the trade sale, the equity round or the refinance pays out. Lending assessed on declared income and existing leverage does not treat a signed SPA as cash in hand.

That is a different underwrite from a property sale. The charged asset is security. The repayment sits in the company sale, the equity round or the term refinance, not in an agent's listing.

How a company-sale exit is underwritten

Private credit against a company sale still starts with the asset. We take a first charge over the premises you pledge: an office floor in Singapore, a freehold warehouse in the UK, a director's investment property. LTV is capped at that asset, not at the headline price in the SPA.

Then we read the exit. A signed SPA, a committed equity term sheet or a refinance letter is the source of repayment. We test whether it can complete inside the tenor, and where it could slip:

• Conditions precedent that can stall completion
• Buyer funding, and any debt the buyer still has to raise
• Consents, change-of-control clauses and long-stop dates

Banks applying the TDSR framework for property loans still gate debt off declared income. We are not a bank and not bound by TDSR, so we lend against the asset and the exit. In the UK the same logic applies when a trading group needs a commercial bridging loan against freehold premises while a trade buyer completes.

What actually goes on the file

We need a valuation, a clean legal title and a document trail that makes the corporate event real. For a UK company that usually includes filings at Companies House, the SPA or term sheet, and evidence the buyer can fund. In Singapore the equivalent is the charged unit, the corporate approvals and source-of-funds papers.

KYC still applies to the borrower, the directors and the beneficial owners. Many facilities sit in an SPV that holds the premises; some sit on the operating company if the charge can be taken cleanly. Interest is often rolled up so the company is not servicing cash interest through the sale process.

If the security is an office, office bridging in Singapore follows the same asset-and-exit test. How the lending process works is the same sequence in both markets: term sheet, valuation, legal, then drawdown. If the file is complete, speak to our team before the SPA long-stop date, not after.

When business bridging finance is the wrong tool

A bridge is the right tool when the corporate event is documented, the timetable fits a 3–24 month tenor, and the charged asset supports the LTV (up to 70% in Singapore, up to 75% in the UK). It is the wrong tool when the exit is a conversation, a non-binding letter of intent, or a buyer with no funds.

The main risk is simple. If the company sale fails, you still owe a short-tenor loan. The fallback is then a refinance, a new equity cheque, or a sale of the charged asset you may not want to trigger.

Cost is higher than term debt, so the holding period matters: a bridge priced for four months is a different proposition from one that runs past the long-stop date. For a worked example of an asset-backed corporate facility, see the £18.8 million facility secured against a landmark West London hotel. Terms remain indicative and subject to valuation and due diligence.