Sovereign Network Group launches £1.5bn EMTN programme

Peter Benz, chief financial officer of SNG, said: “We’re delighted to establish SNG’s EMTN programme, which will enable flexible access to capital markets.

“This is another exciting step to facilitate SNG’s aspirational development programme.”

In January 2024, SNG raised £400m in its first public bond issue since it was formed in 2023 following the merger of Network Homes and Sovereign Housing.

The landlord upped its development target in the wake of the merger. The 25,000-home target is around 5,000 more than Sovereign and Network were planning to build individually.

Last year, Mark Washer, the chief executive of SNG, vowed that it would remain a “developing landlord”.

Following that, he told delegates at the National Housing Federation’s Housing Finance Conference last month that he was not as “wedded” to owning stock as he used to be, as more landlords in the sector look to equity investments as a way of shoring up their finances.

In March, SNG confirmed it had signed a deal with house builder Barratt Redrow to deliver 660 homes on the edge of an Oxfordshire village. The scheme includes 231 affordable homes.

In the same month, Birmingham-based Platform Housing Group announced it had doubled its EMTN programme to £2bn.