Japanese bank loans £35m to housing association
A Japanese bank has continued its foray into social housing, loaning £35m to Richmond Housing Partnership (RHP).
Mitsubishi UFJ Financial Group (MUFG) has now put £500m into the UK social housing sector after agreeing this eight-year revolving credit facility with RHP.
The deal is the latest in a series of moves the large international bank has made in the sector since 2015, when it began offering five to 10-year loans to social housing providers in the UK.
In a similar deal in 2015, it loaned £75m to Anchor, England’s largest provider of older people’s housing.
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Sanjay Narbheram, director of housing finance at MUFG in Europe, the Middle East and Africa, said:
“Building housing is top of the agenda for national and local governments and housing associations like Richmond Housing Partnership are playing an important role in responding to this demand. RHP already manages 8,000 homes in its London boroughs and we are very pleased to play a part in enabling [the organisation] to build more.
“MUFG is committed to being a long-term partner to housing associations and providing them with innovative financing solutions to help them succeed and grow.”
Philip Day, executive director of finance at RHP, said: “It is very important that RHP has well-priced funds in place well in advance of need as we increase our development programme over the coming years. I’m very pleased that this deal with MUFG introduces a new funder to RHP’s portfolio and hope that this is the start of a positive long-term relationship.”
