Puma Property Finance and KKR form up to £500m strategic joint venture to expand UK living sector lending
Puma Property Finance (“Puma”), a specialist UK real estate lender and KKR, a leading global investment firm, today announced the formation of a joint venture between Puma and private credit funds, clients and accounts managed or advised by KKR to provide up to £500m in senior development and stabilisation loans to fund best-in-class residential, Build-To-Rent and student accommodation schemes, providing scaled access to capital in undersupplied UK housing markets.
UK real estate lending, with KKR’s scale, institutional structuring capabilities and global credit expertise. The platform will be supported by a senior credit facility provided by a major international bank.
The three-year forward-flow partnership will target loans of £20 million to £75 million in the UK living sector, including build-to-rent, build-to-sell and purpose-built student accommodation. The platform is designed to support experienced developers delivering high-quality projects in supply-constrained markets.
Since inception in 2012, Puma Property Finance has provided over £2 billion of UK real estate-backed loans and has developed longstanding relationships with sponsors across the residential and student accommodation sectors.
The newly formed strategic partnership will enable Puma to expand its capacity in the £20 million-plus loan segment, where demand for institutional capital continues to outpace supply. It also illustrates the enduring appeal of the UK living sectors, which attracted investment of £12bn throughout 20251. Demand for funding is reflective of the continued shift towards non-bank lenders in UK development finance, which together accounted for 57% of all commercial development lending last year2.
Puma’s specialist development lending team will be responsible for sourcing, underwriting and managing the loans on behalf of the joint venture, working alongside KKR’s global credit platform, which will provide institutional capital, structuring expertise and investment committee oversight. The strategic partnership with KKR caps a stellar last 12 months for Puma, which saw it exceed £2 billion of loans provided to date, as well as announcing the first close of Puma Real Estate Secured Credit Fund.
Anirban Ghosh, Managing Director at KKR, said:
“We are pleased to work with Puma Property Finance to scale access to institutional capital in the UK residential development market.
“We believe this platform is well positioned to support experienced developers delivering much-needed housing across the country, combining Puma’s local expertise and origination capabilities with KKR’s global credit platform and disciplined underwriting approach."
Paul Frost, Managing Director of Puma Property Finance, commented:
“We are delighted to be working with KKR. KKR’s global standing is second to none, and their backing is a clear endorsement of the strength of the business we have built at Puma, as well as the robust demand for UK real estate credit among global allocators of capital.
“This new joint venture provides our origination teams with access to attractively priced, scalable capital to support best-in-class developers across the UK living sectors. It complements our existing capital lines well and means we can support more high quality developments with the service levels, flexibility and human touch that people have come to expect from Puma.”
Puma was advised by Ashcombe Advisers and Greenburg Traurig.
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