Hilco Real Estate Finance (HREF), an institutionally backed real estate bridge lender, is bringing flexible, fast, short-term property finance expertise to the marketplace. The group is led by industry experts and co-founders Brad Altberger, Chief Executive Officer and Max Lewis, Chief Investment Officer.

As a team of highly experienced finance professionals, HREF is backed by Hilco Global, a multi-national organization with over $3 billion in assets under management and industry experts who bring a deep understanding of the secured lending market in the UK and worldwide.

On the recent launch of the group in the UK market, CEO Brad Altberger says, "As a team of experienced lenders, we seek to understand our clients' property assets and funding requirements and to offer speedy, flexible and reliable short-term financing solutions for all property types across the United Kingdom."

With extensive experience in property finance, the HREF experts understand that speed, flexibility, and reliability are key to ensuring successful lending, whether the client is looking to finance residential or commercial property.

"As capital gaps continue to materialize in the real estate financing landscape, HREF is finding an increasing number of opportunities to deploy its flexible finance to assist our clients," says CIO and co-founder Max Lewis.

As a team, HREF prides itself on its ability to provide tailored finance solutions that meet the specific needs of the client, with loans ranging from £1m to £50m and loan-to-value ratios of up to 75%. The HREF lending process is fast and efficient, allowing the client to access the capital they need quickly and without hassle.

Altberger is an experienced investor and lender across multiple real estate asset classes and has been involved in the acquisition and/or disposition of more than $10 billion of assets, including real estate, mortgage portfolios and companies. As a partner at Micota Capital, he made real estate backed bridge loans in addition to equity investments in real estate and real estate backed operating businesses.

Altberger was a London-based Managing Director of GI Partners, where he sat on the Investment Committees of funds with more than $3 billion of equity commitments. He began his career in Arthur Andersen's Structured Finance Group. Mr. Altberger holds a B.S. cum laude in Economics from The Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania.

Prior to co-founding HREF, Lewis was at Arrow Global where he led a specialist lending franchise. Lewis previously set up two bridge lending programs in the UK, as well as programs in Portugal, the Netherlands and Ireland. He started his credit investment activities at the specialist credit investment fund JP Morgan Principal Strategies and previously worked at Rothschild in M&A and financial restructuring. Lewis holds a chemistry degree from Oxford University.

Managing Directors Andrew Ward and Sean Adams complement the leadership team and bring decades of experience investing in real estate backed bridge loans and leading institutional private credit groups. Andrew Ward joins HREF having previously headed specialist lenders Bergen Capital and Reparo, and Sean Adams joins from Interbridge, where he served as Chief Commercial Officer.

"Growing our successful bridge lending practice into the UK market is a natural next step to expand Hilco Real Estate's business," says Neil Aaronson, CEO of Hilco Real Estate and Chairman of HREF. "With over 20+ years of experience in the industry, Hilco Real Estate has become known to business owners and advisors alike as the experienced, strategic partner to trust. We see this as a seamless extension of that reputation."

Years of combined professional experience and access to Hilco Global's worldwide, diversified financial platform allow for tailored services and customized solutions with each client engagement. A fully flexible capital base enables the group to fund a range of capital structures, from short-term debt finance to joint venture equity. HREF works with residential and commercial transactions across the UK, without any preference for a specific sector. The group's senior professionals have successfully completed hundreds of value-maximizing transactions for real estate owning clients across a broad range of industries.