Lloyds Banking Group has appointed Madeleine McDougall as new head of real estate lending, replacing John Feeney, who moves into the position of head of global corporates.
McDougall was previously head of institutional real estate and one of Feeney’s deputies. In a statement this morning, a Lloyds spokesperson said that McDougall’s promotion would ‘provide continuity for commercial real estate clients.’
The reshuffle was triggered by the departure of Clare Francis, previous head of global corporates, who leaves the group to take up a new job in October.
The promotions for Feeney and McDougall are acting roles but are expected to be confirmed shortly. A new head of institutional real estate will be appointed.
Lloyds Bank has emerged as the biggest lender on UK property since the financial crisis, writing new business of about £8 bn (€9.3 bn) in 2016 and with real estate playing its part in the bank’s recovery and profitability.
Like Royal Bank of Scotland, Lloyds was taken into UK government ownership in 2008; on Wednesday the government confirmed that its last shares in Lloyds had been sold and that it would make a modest return, realising £21.2 mln from its £20 bn investment, albeit over nine years.
Feeney has sought to make the bank’s offering for real estate clients as flexible and competitive as possible within the UK’s slotting regulations for allocating bank risk-weighted capital. He joined from Henderson Global Investors in May 2013 at a time when the bank was already a considerable way through divesting its large distressed property loan book under the leadership of Richard Dakin, now at CBRE.
Innovation in CRE lending under his leadership include: re-building links in the CRE loan syndication market to stretch the balance sheet further by distributing more debt; establishing long-term, fixed-rate lending for Lloyds-owned Scottish Widows, a type of lending it is not possible to use the bank’s balance sheet for under slotting; and a £1 bn ‘green’ lending programme which culminated last month in arranging a €600 mln green facility for French-Dutch REIT, Unibail-Rodamco.
McDougall also inherits a CRE role which was expanded under Feeney: unlike other sectors in corporate banking at Lloyds, it includes SME and mid-market clients as well as large, global clients.
Feeney’s role as head of global corporates will be to bank companies in all sectors with turnover above £750 mln.
