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Stephen congrats on your 1 year anniversary with Ortus! Thanks! The time as flown by which has been really great!   What drew you to Ortus originally and has it changed since? I always [...]

This week we’d like to talk about auctions. As with many businesses, auction houses have had to adapt to the Covid-19 environment, with recent sales taking place virtually.  Many commentators [...]

  By the time the UK was placed into lockdown on 23rd March this year, the market was awash with questions as to how lenders would continue to transact given the obvious logistical challenges [...]

The current market is presenting some interesting challenges.  The obvious one applies to borrower and lender – and this is the assessment of risk, which isn’t easy during these unprecedented [...]

Its hard to imagine a time when the words “Brexit” and “coronavirus” didn’t form part of our vocabulary.  It’s been a tumultuous few years.  However, at least I’ve finally learned to stop [...]

Jamie congrats on your 1 year anniversary with Ortus!  Thanks! Its flown by!   What was your experience before joining?   Before working at Ortus I worked at Octopus Property (now Octopus [...]

At Ortus, we see a lot of care homes. I suspect that this is symptomatic of three main factors.   1. Our population is ageing and the number of people who require care is growing. By 2070 [...]

A trend noticed in the most recent (April 2019) EY study into the specialist lending sector remarked that a significant proportion of bridging transactions are in fact re-bridges. Situations and [...]

A reputation for reliable decision and absolute certainty of delivery is something we guard closely. As we’ve grown to include a larger number of colleagues, we’ve established various systems and [...]

I recently looked at some marketing literature from the early days of Ortus Secured Finance seven years ago. One of the prominent taglines was “speak with a decision-maker every time”. Of course, [...]

Offshore structures are a huge part of our economy. Anything from water utilities, telecoms infrastructure, care homes and commercial to residential property are owned either directly or [...]

Bridging is all about speed and efficiency – especially during the underwriting and due-diligence process, so we thought it might be useful to share 10 Top Tips on how the process can be made [...]

I go clothes shopping a couple of times a year. At most. I never find it an enjoyable experience, but last weekend was particularly bad. The shops seemed understocked and didn’t have the [...]

At Ortus, we take service very seriously and were absolutely delighted to have been recognised for this at this year’s Bridging and Commercial Awards where we won the Service Excellence [...]

A growing number of buy-to-let landlords are turning to Airbnb-style short-term lets as they hunt for higher yields amongst slow rental growth in UK residential property. The potential yield from [...]

A growing number of pubs and bars are struggling to make ends meet, with even the biggest companies issuing profit warnings over the last few weeks. Recent data has shown that there has been a 9% [...]

The UK’s economic climate hasn’t been looking its most positive over the last year – and Brexit has played no small role in this. In the wake of the UK’s vote to leave the European Union, the [...]

It has been five years since Mary Portas published her landmark report on how to revitalize the high street. aced with the unrelenting march of ecommerce, it is perhaps unsurprising that this [...]

The nightclub has been going through something of a rough patch over the last few years. Weekend revelers can be found opting for bars and pubs for their late-night entertainment, instead of more [...]

Northern Ireland has had somewhat of a rollercoaster year, politically speaking. Tensions between the country’s two foremost political parties – Sein Finn and the Democratic Unionist Party – have [...]

The year 2007 was a significant one for the pub industry. Hit by a triple whammy – smoking ban, recession and a reduction in supermarket alcohol prices – the pub industry, as it was then known, [...]

As Brexit gets underway, there is the threat that decisions will be made on immigration and visa rules which will have a knock-on effect on the number of international students coming to the [...]

We’re big fans of caravanning and camping at Ortus. This doesn’t mean we go on team holidays (I suspect we’d kill each other if we did), but it does mean we’re happy to lend into the sector. [...]

First the good news – the UK enjoyed a much-needed lending bounce last year, with the outstanding amount of bank lending advanced to companies across the country increasing to £356billion in [...]

I was reading some property stats this morning and it made me think of cobras.  Specifically, the Cobra Effect, also known as the Law of Unintended Consequences. The cobra story harks back to the [...]

The start of January saw the usual media commentary about New Year’s resolutions.  However, an article on 7th January by Oliver Burkeman in the Guardian [...]

Who remembers Mondex?  It was smart card conceived in 1993 by Tim Jones and Graham Higgins of Natwest Bank and was designed to replace coins for small transactions.  The card could be loaded from [...]

A month ago I wrote a blog about the gym industry.  A few people asked why I hadn’t written about Brexit because, at the time, the referendum date was approaching.  I said the subject had become [...]

I booked my place in the 2016 Budapest Marathon today.  I had no choice.  I need something to motivate me to regain my fitness and (for me) a marathon on the horizon is the only thing that [...]

As a London-based company, we at Ortus followed the London Mayoral elections.  Many people were saying it would be a close race and, for a while, I agreed with them because our office was fairly [...]

I have just returned from a family holiday to Sri Lanka and, aside from the sea, sun and wildlife, one of the most enjoyable things was eating out most days.  I hadn’t expected this to be the [...]

  As most people know by now, Ortus began life with a focus on financing pubs.  For various reasons (none of them related to alcoholism) the management had experience in the sector and this [...]

In early 2013 Ortus was launched with an emphasis on pub finance.  We have always done a lot more besides finance pubs, but it was the pub finance capability which caught the attention of brokers [...]

The night of October 8th 2008 divided the Icelandic people and transformed the way we think and what we value.  Since that fateful day, Iceland has been hated, pitied, admired and romanticized. [...]

That famous job interview question:  “what is your biggest weakness?”  Difficult to answer.  Saying something like “I’m a bit dishonest” isn’t an option.  So interviewees find weaknesses that are [...]

It’s been almost 2 years since Jon Salisbury appointed himself Chief Blog Writer and, over this period, nobody else has had a look-in. However, this month Jon has been busy organising his [...]

The other day, I was looking at some of our old marketing products and it struck me how much our industry has changed in a very short space of time. As recently as last year we were issuing [...]

Most of us at Ortus team spent Wednesday in Birmingham at the NACFB Expo.  We set up a pub serving free pints and, unsurprisingly, we were extremely busy – especially after midday. It wasn’t just [...]

I was reading an article recently by a well-known economics commentator (who I won’t name) which tried to summarise why Britain’s productivity per worker is going down. The conclusion was [...]

When we first entered the bridging industry in early 2013 the first thing we noticed was the number of other bridging lenders.  It was a seriously crowded market. We needed to offer something new [...]

Reading the business press over the holidays, you’d be forgiven for thinking something profound was happening in the UK supermarket sector.  Apparently, the Evil Old Guard led by Tesco are [...]

Anyone interested in pubs will be aware of the recent vote in Parliament which according to many journalists marked the end of the Beer Tie. Actually, it didn’t mark the end of the Beer Tie but [...]

I returned on Sunday from Amsterdam where I completed the marathon in an unbelievably slow time (which shame prevents me from disclosing). Without wishing to find excuses for my pathetic display, [...]

This time last week I was breaking up a street fight in Mallorca.  I think it started when my 4 year old daughter took my 2 year old son’s packet of raisins, but I can’t be sure because my [...]

Sometimes on a Monday you look at the week ahead and think “this is a big one”.  The last week in June was like that in the bridging industry. On 25th we all went up to the Birmingham NEC for a [...]

England supporters are finding this World Cup very difficult to predict.  Just thinking about the group stage presents positives and negatives in equal measure. We have a good team … but they are [...]

Many years ago I worked at a London investment bank which churned out company and market reports on a weekly basis. The guys who wrote the reports were seriously bright. However, like everyone [...]

During March, a few of us from Ortus attended the Finance Expo in Edinburgh, which is a city I visited for the first time 13 years ago. Back in 2001 I had just completed the Bank of Scotland [...]

Many years ago in Sydney I went to a presentation by Peter Sheahan, the author of the book Generation Y.  The only thing I remember from his hour long speech was one message:  “Describe what you [...]

January has been a busy month at Ortus and thankfully it’s showing no signs of slowing down.  We’ve had a record number of loan completions which is brilliant and given our healthy pipeline, [...]

For many lenders, activity starts to slow down in December.  Enquiries reduce and everyone seems to accept that the deals in progress will happen in January. However, at Ortus our focus on the [...]