2023 Q3 Report
Union Bank Inn
On May 31, 2023, our affiliated company, Union Bank Holdings Ltd., acquired the Union Bank Building. Since that time:
- We have reached a deal with Hyatt to include the Union Bank Inn as part of the Hyatt Unbound collection of boutique hotels (Learn more about it here https://www.hyatt.com/brands/unbound-collection). There are currently only 38 Unbound hotels in the world, including the Hotel du Louvre in Paris, the Great Scotland Yard Hotel in London, and the ChicagoAthletic Association hotel. Through the great work of our branding agency, Glasfurd & Walker, the Union Bank Inn will be telling the story of Edmonton’s history of trade through our tag-line theme “Trading Hospitality”;
- We have reached an agreement with Sabor to become the new restaurant for the Union Bank Inn. The owners of Sabor are creating an “elevated” version of Sabor (and a new name) that will serve breakfast, lunch, and dinner for hotel guests, our clients, and all other visitors. The blending of Union Financial Corporation (“ UFC ”), Grow LendingGroup Inc., the Union Bank Inn, and Sabor will truly bring “Trading Hospitality” to life; and
- We continue to design the new hotel, office, and restaurant space with Frank Architecture, which will likely take the remainder of this year and early 2024 to complete. Construction is anticipated to begin in mid-2024 and we anticipate fully re-opening by spring 2025.
Grow Q3 Loan Update
To the end of the 3rd quarter, the team at Grow has reviewed over 200 loan opportunities. Given our tight due diligence and selection process, only 24 were considered worthy of being sent for consideration to our lenders. As mentioned in our last Lender Update, we do not keep any loan opportunities to ourselves, nor do we only send loan opportunities to selected Lenders, unless the borrower has asked us to do so. Our policy is to send all of our selected loan opportunities to all of our lenders. As you may have noticed, many of our loans get filled within 48 hours after ourLender Sheets are emailed to our lender, which is a testament to the quality of the loans that we source, underwrite, and send to our lenders. You can find samples of list of the deals that we have done on our website: www.growlending.ca
New Hire
We are very excited to announce the hiring of Matt Oldham from ATB who will commence working for UFC on October 10, 2023. Matt is leaving his position as Director, Corporate Banking with ATB to join us. Matt brings over 20 years of banking experience with Canadian Western Bank and ATB, and will become the Chief Operating Officer for UFC overseeing the creation and operation of our funds and the financial operations of UFC, its affiliated companies, and Grow. Along with Adelhardt Glombick (formerly the Market Leader and Managing Director for ATB for Edmonton and Alberta North) and Casey McKenzie (formerly a commercial banker with ATB), our businesses now has serious banking bench strength, arguably the best in the region for a non-institutional financial business.
Economic Newsletter
In order to keep you up to date on the latest economic developments in Canada that are relevant to the lending work that we do, we are delighted to announce that Kevin Fettig will be writing articles for us to send to you. Kevin has had a long career in capital markets, housing finance, and public policy. He has worked as an economist for Alberta Treasury, Saskatchewan Policy Secretariat, the Bank of Canada, and the Department of Finance Canada. His work has included tax policy, economic forecasting, as well as monetary policy and debt management. While at the Bank of Canada, he authored two Bank of Canada Review articles on monetary policy. Kevin has worked on a variety of debt programs from treasury bills to domestic and foreign bond issues, and interest rate swaps. He worked on building and managing the federal real return bond program, the Canada Savings Bond program, and built out the bond buyback program and a synthetic foreign funding program – two programs which are still in use today by the federal government. While at CMHC, Kevin managed the market funding program for social housing, built and managed the Canada Mortgage Bonds program, and expanded the products offered under the NHA MBS program. He has worked for several mortgage insurers including CMHC, Canada Guaranty, Triad Guaranty and Genworth. This work encompassed product development and risk management across housing markets in North America, Europe, Asia,Australia, and New Zealand. More recently he has had senior management roles with residential lenders managing underwriting, risk, product development, capital markets, and strategic planning.
Union Financial Corporation
UFC has launched its first fund, Grow Capital Two Inc. (“ GCT ”), on behalf of Cash Today Inc. GCT has raised over $12 million to date. The fund pays 18% per annum interest with monthly distributions made directly into the lenders’ bank accounts each month via EFT. GCT continues to accept new funds. If you are interested in investing in GCT, or learning more about GCT, please contact one of our licensed Dealing Representatives. They would be pleased to provide you with more information and details regarding the fund.
UFC continues its work on its Mortgage Investment Corporation (“ MIC ”), which will be launched in the coming months. Our MIC will provide investors with excellent returns with the benefit of diversification as the invested funds will be secured by mortgages across a large number of residential properties. We will keep you updated as to our anticipated launch date. From all of us at Grow and UFC, we want to thank you again for your ongoing trust and support in our business.
