City round-up: Together Financial Services; Kier Group
Cheadle-based specialist property lender, Together Financial Services, has separated and upsized its £1.25bn Charles Street securitisation programme (CABS) into two revolving warehouse facilities totalling £1.59bn to support its well established RMBS (Residential Mortgage-Backed Security) programmes.
The facility has been separated into two revolving warehouse facilities – the £1.2bn Kingsway Asset Backed Securitisation will support first charge RMBS issuances, while the £387m Wilmslow Asset Backed Securitisation will support second charge RMBS issuances.
Commercial terms have improved and maturities extended to December 2029, and four new banks have been added to the facilities.
The separation of CABS, which supports residential owner occupier and buy-to-let loans, further simplifies and more closely aligns the group’s funding structure with its residential mortgage-backed securitisation issuance programme.
CABS was first launched in 2007 as a £500m revolving securitisation facility. In 2014, the facility was increased to £675m, before being further extended to £1bn in 2016 and £1.25bn in 2018.
Gary Beckett, Group Managing Director and Chief Treasury Officer of Together, said: “The separation of the facility on improved terms reflects the continued strength of our business and the long-term support of our funding partners.”
During calendar year 2024, Together raised or refinanced more than £3.3bn of facilities across seven transactions.
The group recently announced its results for the quarter to September 30, 2024, showing average monthly originations of £269.3m, bringing its loan book to a new high of £7.6bn and underlying profit before tax for the quarter of £53.7m.
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Andrew Davies
Construction giant Kier Group has an order book worth c.£11bn, a c.2% increase on the year-end position (30 June 2024: £10.8bn) and c.3% above the prior year comparative (31 December 2023: £10.7bn).
In a trading update to the stock market this morning, the Salford Quays headquartered group said recent awards of contract include Yorkshire Water for their £850m investment in water processing and waste networks; a 4 year £500m NHS decarbonisation of estates framework and a £240m contract with the Ministry of Defence to build new accommodation at Keogh Barracks.
The board has also reviewed ongoing capital requirements and has approved an initial share buyback of £20m.
Andrew Davies, Chief Executive of Kier, commented: “Kier has delivered a strong first half performance, in line with our expectations. The strength of our cash generation combined with the multi-year revenue visibility afforded by our growing quality order book and underpinned by our strong balance sheet, gives us the confidence that this momentum will continue.
“We continue to be well positioned to benefit from UK Government and regulated industry infrastructure spending plans into areas where Kier offers market leading services, notably transport, education, healthcare, justice, defence, nuclear and water.
“Given our order book growth combined with our continued de-levering and greater confidence that we will achieve an average month-end net cash position, we have announced today a £20m share buyback, as part of our evolved capital allocation policy to maximise shareholder returns.”
