Highclere Capital Lending, led by business veterans Leon Dadoun and Paul Grewal, started taking form final summer season and is gearing as much as serve its first purchasers by the tip of April.
Dadoun, Highclere’s CEO, brings 4 many years of expertise in Canadian and Worldwide banking with a specialty in debt capital markets.
Equally, Grewal, who serves as President, brings experience from a protracted profession driving progress and innovation, having beforehand led groups at Morcorp Capital, Avenue Capital Financial institution and FirstLine Mortgages.
Dadoun sees worldwide capital markets as a key differentiator for Highclere’s technique. Whereas many mid-market lenders depend on retail deposits or conventional securitization, Highclere is working to ascertain a extra liquid secondary marketplace for uninsured mortgages—one thing that has remained elusive in Canada.
He tells Canadian Mortgage Traits that whereas international funding sources stay largely untapped by mid-market lenders, a lack of information and ambition has stored opponents from filling the hole—compounded by an over-reliance on retail deposits as the first funding supply for mid-level banks.
A brand new method to mid-market funding
Dadoun factors out one other key problem going through many mid-market lenders—their reliance on a broker-to-broker mannequin, which may put strain on profitability.
“In the event you take a look at a lot of the mid-market banks on the market, they’re actually working what is called a broker-to-broker mannequin,” he says. “They’re paying dealer commissions on the asset facet of the steadiness sheet, and dealer commissions on the liabilities facet of the steadiness sheet, and in order that squeezes margins and makes them considerably much less aggressive.”
Increasing past conventional funding sources is central to Highclere’s method. Whereas the corporate will first enter the market with insured and insurable mortgage merchandise via established financial institution aggregators, it’s already laying the groundwork for its Alt-A portfolio.
By actively selling Canada’s mortgage business to overseas funds and funding sellers, Highclere has secured new financing channels to assist this enlargement and, finally, a broader push into capital markets funding.
“There’s an inflection level between the distinction in the price of capital markets funding, and the distinction in price of brokerage deposits the place you’ll fairly pay that delta,” provides Dadoun. “What Highclere loses in not with the ability to soak up retail deposits, it greater than good points from the flexibility to function at the next leverage than any mid-level retail financial institution would.”
Two different key elements assist set Highclere aside—its dedication to integrating cutting-edge AI and machine studying into its adjudication course of, and its unique concentrate on nationwide brokerage partnerships, with no plans for direct-to-consumer choices.
Grewal’s expertise in partnership improvement and technical integration performs a vital function in each initiatives.
Leveraging AI for quicker approvals
Whereas AI shall be integral to Highclere’s underwriting course of, the corporate has but to disclose the specifics of its fintech and AI partnerships.
These particulars are anticipated to be introduced quickly, however for now, Dadoun and Grewal inform us the corporate’s focus stays on growing superior instruments to streamline the underwriting course of.
Highclere expects to roll out rule-based product pricing and decisioning instruments throughout the subsequent yr, aiming to automate key features of underwriting and credit score evaluation.
“The target is to get rid of the guide bottlenecks in mortgage underwriting,” says Grewal. “Automating doc processing, extracting the data brokers are attending to us in minutes versus manually doing it … there are capabilities proper now the place synthetic intelligence can scan recordsdata and catch inconsistencies earlier than they delay approvals.”
As for the broker-only centered method, it’s a technique that has performed effectively all through Grewal’s profession up to now, emphasizing constant and dependable efficiency via an increasing community of strategic companions.
Not like some lenders the place brokers wrestle to attach with decision-makers, Highclere is dedicated to offering direct entry to its underwriting and credit score groups, guaranteeing quick turnarounds and a extra seamless expertise. It’s a longtime roadmap for achievement that the crew is seeking to replicate.
“The one method we’re going to win—and I’ve discovered this after 30 years within the enterprise—is that service and that relationship you present to that mortgage dealer will decide should you get the subsequent deal,” notes Grewal.
“When combining that with our capital markets funding technique and product innovation, we imagine brokers shall be in a stronger place to supply extra selections to the purchasers,” he provides. “Our aim is to assist mortgage brokers to win and succeed.”
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Dylan Freeman-Grist Highclere Capital Lending Lender Leon Dadoun mortgage industry mortgage industry news Paul Grewal
Final modified: February 24, 2025
