When Helena and her husband Amir Hadzhihajdic t/a Evergreen Care Services Limited first purchased The Elms Care Home in 2019, it only had nine residents in its care, required improvements in order to reach the high standards required by the CQC and had not been invested in by the previous owner for some time. The home is now registered to accommodate 28 residents. Since taking over the home, Helena has enforced a clear refurbishment programme and has restructured the employee set up, instilling staff with confidence and providing training which enables them to offer outstanding care to all residents.

Helena is a highly experienced and qualified care operator with a true passion to continually improve the services she provides to the health and social care industry. Her career history has taken her to all levels of care, with over one year of successfully operating her own care home being her latest achievement. Throughout her time in the sector, Helena has been strongly supported by her immediate family, in particular her husband, Amir. Their skills have complemented one another greatly, with Amir creating back office systems and project managing the refurbishments that have taken place at The Elms. 

Due to the obvious complications surrounding the home and this being Helena’s first purchase, funding was a challenge however, Jimmy Johns at Christie Finance had complete faith in Helena’s ability to turn the home around.

After an expansive search of the funding market, a short-term specialist lender demonstrated support of the transaction. There were many hurdles along the way, however the joined-up approach of a broker, the client and lender made the sure the transaction remained on track and successfully completed. This collaborative approach has meant that the journey although challenging was achieved, completing the purchase in May 2019.

Now almost eight months on, the excellent relationship developed between Helena and Jimmy resulted in the second stage of the transaction to refinance out of the short-term arrangement, which began in June 2020 in the middle of the pandemic, was swift. Securing three lenders providing strong credit backed offers of finance was a complete reversal of the first-time funding was obtained for our client, even with this being in the height of the pandemic. The refinance provided Helena with the ability to concentrate on continuous improvements to the Elms, along with potential expansion plans for Evergreen Services Limited.

Commenting on her experience working with Christie Finance throughout the near two-year history of the transaction, Helena says “Our dream came true. We had a clear vision; we had a clear plan and a strong self-belief that what we were trying to achieve would result in an amazing and quality driven service. What we needed is someone that would recognise our potential and help us to achieve the financial support in order to secure the purchase of The Elms.  And yes, we have found that someone that believed in us and helped us through this rather turbulent process.

Jimmy Johns from Christie Finance had taken a complete interest in our business plan. He never said it was going to be easy, but he never gave up. When one door closed, he always managed to open another door of hope. Although we had an amazing business plan that we all felt was only going towards one way, which is success, banks were very reluctant to work with us due to the poor condition of the care home that we were purchasing, but also us, as first-time buyers. However, we were very fortunate that Jimmy introduced us to a lender that has recognised our potential, listened to us, and worked with us in order to achieve our dream. 

We still come to work with big smiles on our faces thinking how grateful we are to have achieved what we have and to have found people that have supported us on our journey.”

Jimmy Johns, Associate Director at Christie Finance who worked with Evergreen Care Services Limited to make their first care home purchase in 2019 and has since brokered a refinance and further purchase on behalf of the company, comments “It has been an absolute pleasure to support Helena again in securing the funding she requires. The Elms Care Home is a testament to Helena’s abilities to improve the performance and successfully operate an outstanding care home. I wish her and Amir and the rest of the staff working for Evergreen Care Services all the very best in running Westbourne Care Home and a continued success operating The Elms Care Home. I hope this will not be the last time I will be working with Evergreen Care Services Limited to help grow their successful care portfolio.”
 

For more information, contact the following:

Anna Moore
Marketing Manager
T +44 20 3846 0609
M +44 7590 486 352
E: anna.moore@christie.com 

Jimmy Johns
Associate Director - Christie Finance
T: +44 (0) 117 946 8517
M: +44 (0) 771 1767593
E: jimmy.johns@christiefinance.com