£3.2m for a technology founder on equity and a modest salary
Lending arranged around a founder's company equity and vested options, not a modest PAYE salary the high street assessed in isolation.
The client
The founder of a venture-backed technology company, with the large majority of personal wealth held as equity in the business and a deliberately modest salary drawn while the company scaled.
The challenge
High-street lenders assessed affordability on base salary alone and could not account for the founder’s substantial, if illiquid, equity stake or vested share options. On paper the declarable income looked far too small for the property in question.
Our approach
We took the case to a private bank that lends against the whole balance sheet, evidencing the shareholding, the cap table and vesting position alongside liquid investments, and structured the facility around the wider relationship rather than a payslip.
The outcome
Lending of £3.2m was agreed at 65% LTV on an interest-only basis, secured against a prime London home and supported by the founder’s equity and investment assets, completed six weeks from instruction.
Client details have been anonymised. This is an illustrative example; individual circumstances and available terms will differ. Your property may be repossessed if you do not keep up repayments on a mortgage secured against it. Some forms of finance are not regulated by the Financial Conduct Authority.
A founder whose wealth sat in illiquid company equity, not salary, with the high street unable to look past a modest PAYE base.
They understood that my balance sheet, not my payslip, is the real picture.Technology founder · London
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