General Overview As we finally see Europe starting to ease restrictions and get back to work, with shops and business’s beginning to reopen we must start to evaluate the potential impact on the lending and, in particular, German Bridging Finance. It has been well reported even by the most partisan of media, that Germany has lead Europe in its response to this pandemic. The economic impact appears to be less, at this stage, than other countries, with GDP only falling 2.2% in the first quarter against neighbouring countries with a fall of 4 to 6%. The unemployment rate went from 5 to 5.8 at the end of April, again far less than other major economies, which is naturally a good indicator of the potential impact on the residential housing market. From a micro perspective, the decision of the country’s 16 states to allow factories and building sites to stay open has resulted in the construction industry, which accounts for almost 10% of Germanies economy, expand by 1.8% in March, which during this unprecedented period is truly impressive. Liquidity Management As we commented last month, one of our key focuses was to monitor the regularity of borrowers repaying interest monthly and, to date, we have seen no negative impact on this side, and therefore we have not seen a decrease in the monthly payment of interest, even though it is a facility in their loan agreements. As stated, since the start of the Covid19 events, we made the early decision to maintain a bigger cash position to accommodate investors needs for cash, the current position at time of writing, stands close to 20% In the coming weeks, we expect approximately 70 million Euros of repayments from our borrowers, which will take liquidity to 25% and will also allow us to complete
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