Housing assosiation agrees new funding with three lenders worth £284m
Savills Financial Consultants has helped Great Places Housing Group in securing three new agreements totalling £284m with Santander, NatWest, and ABN AMRO.
Existing lenders Santander and NatWest Bank have agreed to provide £109m and £100m in funding and new partner ABN AMRO has extended a £75m loan to Great Places, a housing association with 25,000 homes in Derbyshire, the North West, Yorkshire.
The loans are structured as revolving credit facilities (RCFs).
Each RCF includes sustainability-linked performance metrics. Should Great Places achieve predetermined energy efficiency goals for both new and existing homes, they will benefit from a reduced interest rate.
The Manchester housing association plans to use the funds to improve existing homes and build new ones in the North West, Yorkshire, and Derbyshire and also aims to enhance property conditions and customer service, while developing 9,000 new affordable homes by 2030.
Mike Gerrard, chief financial officer at Great Places Housing Group, said: “We are delighted to continue and develop our relationships with NatWest and Santander and welcome ABN AMRO as a new banking partner. We received strong interest from the banking sector for this transaction and it is pleasing to move forward with sustainability-linked funding. Thank you to the Great Places team and Savills for their insight and support.”
Martin Skinner, relationship director at NatWest, said: “We are a major lender to the UK affordable housing sector and are delighted to continue to support the important work of Great Places in providing much-needed social housing to the region. The RCF structure, coupled with sustainability-linked performance measures, will lead to more energy-efficient homes across the North West, Yorkshire and Derbyshire.
“We are proud to have announced that in 2023 we completed nearly £3bn of new funding to help more people and families have access to housing. We support around 200 housing associations across the UK and are proud to announce our ambition to provide a further £5bn in funding to support the housing association sector by the end of 2026.”
The transaction was also supported by Addleshaw Goddard and the valuation team at Savills.
