Arbuthnot Latham review 2026, real estate finance of £1m to £20m and asset based lending to £35m

What Arbuthnot Latham lends

The commercial lending page groups seven things. Real estate finance covers residential investment, professional HMOs and the private rented sector; the real estate page adds commercial property, development, and facilities typically of £1m to £20m for introducers and clients, including those with more complex corporate structures. Mortgages cover buy-to-let, property ownership and refinancing. Business loans fund a capital injection, equipment or UK media production, overdrafts smooth cash flow, and asset finance takes in hire purchase, leasing and the refinance of equipment and vehicles. Growth Guarantee Scheme lending, the successor to the Recovery Loan Scheme launched in July 2024, is offered to the bank's clients and to those of its asset based lender.

That lender is Arbuthnot Commercial Asset Based Lending Limited, company 10915339, set up on 14 August 2017 and reported in the group's 2025 results with a loan book of £219.4m. Its facilities run from £1m to £35m and are built from four lines: invoice discounting at up to 95% of eligible receivables with 120 days of funding, stock at up to 100% of its net orderly value over a 120-day period, plant and machinery at up to 85% of ex-situ value amortising over a maximum of five years, and property at up to 80% of market value amortising over 15 years, with cash flow loans as a supplement. It funds management buyouts and buy-ins, acquisitions, growth and refinancing for business-to-business SMEs and lower mid-market companies in manufacturing, engineering, industrial, business services, transport and logistics, recruitment, construction and facilities management.

Two further group businesses lend from £25,000: Renaissance Asset Finance, whose book reached £285.8m in 2025, and Asset Alliance Group, which held £382.8m of assets available for lease. The construction sector page gives a worked shape for a trading business: a commercial mortgage on the trading premises, asset finance for yellow plant and commercial vehicles, invoice finance at 95% of receivables and a cash flow loan amortising over up to five years.

Who Arbuthnot Latham lends to

Commercial customers, the lending page says, are usually running businesses with a turnover greater than £1m a year, with the asset finance offerings the stated exception. The commercial banking page sets the entry point for a new relationship at £500,000 of deposits or £1m of borrowing. Twelve sector teams are named, among them accountants, construction, Court of Protection practitioners, credit unions, legal and solicitors, media, entertainment and creative, professional services, racing, real estate, technology and trading businesses, the last of these described as owner-managed and privately owned companies across a wide range of industries.

Clients can be anywhere in the UK; offices sit in London, Manchester, Bristol and Exeter, and the real estate page says its London, South West and North West teams serve clients across the country. Every client is given a dedicated commercial banker, and the bank states that it does not route calls through call centres or chatbots. The footer states that Arbuthnot Latham & Co., Limited is on the Financial Services Register under Firm Reference Number 143336, and that entry can be read at register.fca.org.uk. Property-secured lending through us is for UK limited companies and LLPs, on business terms.

How an application runs

A case starts with a commercial banker rather than a portal. The lending page describes a relationship-led approach, with the banker working alongside the client's accountants and lawyers, and the real estate page frames each facility as tailored to the project after the team has understood the requirement. The bank publishes a client support line, 020 7012 2100, and for businesses with under 50 employees and turnover below £6.5m it offers the Current Account Switch Service, which moves a current account in seven working days.

With us the order is reversed: the property, the entity and the numbers are read against Arbuthnot and the other panel lenders writing the same product first, and a named case handler builds one proposal for whichever desk fits, real estate, asset based lending or asset finance. We arrange; Arbuthnot Latham takes the credit decision. Enquiring does not affect your credit score.

Arbuthnot Latham on our panel

At September 2026 the 1 live Arbuthnot commercial mortgage product on our panel was sized £750,000 at the low end and £40m at the top, on a 25 years term. That top figure is double the £20m the real estate page calls typical, because the span is read from the product as our catalogue holds it rather than from a deal the bank has written, and panel entries change with each pull.

Beside it, at September 2026 we counted 33 lender brands on the panel with a live commercial mortgage for professional practices, 36 for offices, 32 for industrial property and 42 lending on Welsh security. Those numbers count brands with one or more live products and are silent on what Arbuthnot itself would write.