Freshfields Bruckhaus Deringer advised Goldman Sachs on the funding of a new Dutch residential mortgage business established by a Dutch credit advisory firm, Dynamic Credit Partners (DCP). The transaction is partnered by Netherlands-based mortgage servicer, Quion Groep, which has obtained approval from the Dutch Authority for Financial Markets, to offer mortgage loans to customers based in the Netherlands.

This is the second significant transaction in the Dutch residential mortgage origination space in 2015 and is representative of a growing trend of non-Dutch capital providers investing in the Dutch mortgage market. The investment is motivated by the increasingly attractive cost of funds available to capital providers and the relatively high and stable income Dutch mortgages can generate - even in an increasingly competitive retail mortgage environment.

Freshfields is the market leader in this product in the Netherlands, having acted on the first transaction of this kind in 2014 where GE Capital disposed of its non-core Dutch mortgage business to an equity consortium of Venn Partners, KKR and Siem Capital, which was financed by the Royal Bank of Scotland (RBS). Earlier this year, we acted for RBS on a new funding line to the Venn consortium enabling them to increase the scale of their new business through additional lending to Dutch consumers.

The Freshfields team was led by finance partner Mandeep Lotay.

Mandeep Lotay commented: 'That the acquisition of existing or establishment of new mortgage origination platforms in the Netherlands as a trend has been confirmed by this transaction. More generally we are seeing alternative capital providers moving into a space traditionally dominated by traditional banks, not only in the Netherlands but in Europe more generally. This is bringing competition to these markets which should ultimately benefit the consumer'