A company set up by the former leaders of Palmer Capital has bought a stake in a residential investment manager and is backing a new fund being set up to lend to small and medium-sized enterprise resi developers.

Ashen Capital acquired a stake of up to 20% in Sibner IM, a subsidiary of Sibner Group, which has a rented residential portfolio and a residential lending business.

Ashen is supporting a planned residential development debt fund that Sibner is launching by providing nonexecutive advice and governance.

The fund will focus on senior development and bridging loans and is set to launch in the first quarter. It is targeting high-net-worth investors, wealth managers and family offices and is seeking a net return of over 12% a year with a quarterly distribution of 1.75%. It will benefit from a £20M initial seed commitment from Sibner Group and Ashen.

The fund is targeting SME developers, which are traditionally underserved by lenders despite the undersupply of UK residential stock, Ashen said.

Ashen was established by Alex Price and Steven Wright in September 2024. Price and Wright were CEO and head of corporate investments, respectively, for the fund manager and kept those roles when the business was bought by Canadian investment manager Fiera Capital in 2019.

The duo left last year to start Ashen. The new company specialises in buying, backing and taking stakes in smaller UK property companies, which was one of the key pillars of Palmer Capital’s business.

South west London-based Sibner Group was founded by siblings Tom Mackintosh, George Mackintosh, Mollie O’Gorman and Wilfrid van Geest out of a family company originally established in the 1950s.

“Ashen’s mission is to help grow smaller property businesses by providing three separate strands of support: management expertise, co-investment and access to an institutional investor base,” Ashen's Price said in a statement. “The investment into Sibner IM does this whilst also allowing us to partner with an exceptional team.

“This platform gives a superior risk-adjusted way to access the UK residential sector whilst also helping to contribute to solving the UK’s chronic housing shortage.”