Customers directed to new NAB loan unit

Yorkshire Bank has stopped all lending on commercial property and has transferred £5.6bn worth of loans to its parent’s balance sheet as part of a deep restructuring exercise.

Customers have told the Yorkshire Post that they have been instructed by NAB not to contact previous contacts at Yorkshire Bank. Instead, they have been allocated new relationship managers at NAB UK Commercial Real Estate, which was set up in October to manage the loans.

The unit is led by insolvency expert Rick Drury and has 200 staff, many of whom have transferred from Yorkshire and Clydesdale Banks.

A Yorkshire Bank spokesman said the new managers co-ordinate all relationship banking activity. He added that the lender continues to update valuations on property portfolios. He confirmed that customers must pay for these valuations.

Yorkshire and Clydesdale Banks have been hit by plunging commercial property values in recent years.

They reported a worse than expected statutory loss of £470m in the last financial year, mainly due to bad loans on commercial property.

NAB said it intends “to seek the full repayment of each commercial real estate loan at the end of the maturity date”.