About Us
Watkin Property Ventures is a leading provider of development finance to entrepreneurial property businesses. We also invest in and develop our own properties.
We are a private, family-run business. For over nine generations, the Watkin Jones family has been engaged in all areas of real estate, from construction, development, and investment, to providing property finance like we do today.
We put our longevity down to our focus on helping entrepreneurial developers grow their portfolios. While many developers find bank financing unsuitable and other forms of finance difficult to access, we offer flexible development finance solutions that enable our borrowers to see property schemes through to completion.
We provide funding for almost all property asset classes, including residential, commercial, mixed-use, leisure, purpose-built student accommodation (PBSA), and much else besides. It’s this openness to new opportunities that will see us deliver on our mission to double the size of our business by 2024.
As a business, we are proud to support a variety of charitable projects and initiatives within the local communities where we work. Our commitment to impact is part of who we are as a business, and we recognise that targeted funding to community causes can make a significant difference on the ground.
What we do
- We provide development finance and loans to new and established property businesses, allowing them to fund residential, commercial, and other types of developments.
- We identify, acquire, and develop sites, selling them to other developers, investors, and occupiers.
- We acquire properties for our investment portfolio and improve them through asset management, so that they support the business and customer needs of their occupiers.
Our history
The Watkin Jones family have been active in property for nine generations. From construction and development to investment and finance, our family has been active in the industry for more than 200 years.
The Watkin Jones' first family business was founded in Bangor, North Wales in 1791. Starting out in carpentry, the business later moved into building and construction. Now known as Watkin Jones plc, the company was at the heart of the growth of the local area, even laying the first stone of the new Bangor University College Buildings. Watkin Jones plc moved into the residential sector in the 1920s, building private homes in North Wales, before expanding in the 1990s with a new homes division.
In 1999, Watkin Jones plc completed its first student accommodation development and, following the 2008 financial crisis, the company went from strength to strength. The business transformed from a regional developer to a national name in student accommodation, before floating on the London Stock Exchange in 2016. The Watkin Jones family exited the businesses in 2018 to concentrate on Watkin Property Ventures but remain minority shareholders.
We have always adapted to the changing market. That is the blueprint for our success. Since the 18th century, we have worked in almost all areas of property, across nearly every asset class. More recently, we have come to realise that reliable access to finance is the single biggest obstacle in the industry today.
Watkin Jones superintends the completion of the foundation stone for the new University College buildings in Bangor