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Aspire secures £205m funding
Aspire Housing has secured a £205m funding package as part of its refinancing process.
The Newcastle-under-Lyme-based association intends to boost its development programme to 1,700 homes over the next five years, and raised the funding deals with this end in mind.
The money includes £60m invested by Legal & General’s real assets arm, LGIM Real Assets, the first institutional lender to put money into Aspire. That loan was made at an all-in rate of below 3.5%, repayable over the next 30 years; £10m of the funding has been deferred for 12 months.
Barclays and Lloyds Bank also provided £145m of restructured facilities to the 8,500-home association.
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John Lindsay, executive director of finance and governance at Aspire, said: “This refinancing and new funding deal will enable Aspire to deliver the homes our communities need. All of this has been achieved with costs contained significantly within our business plan assumptions and has resulted in a much-reduced cost of capital for Aspire.”
Terry Frain, a director at Savills Financial Consultants, which worked with Aspire on the refinancing, added: “Aspire Housing is an ambitious organisation with a strategic objective to use its asset base sensibly to help alleviate local housing pressures through pursuit of an enlarged development programme.
“Its former funding structure, with business plan approval mechanisms and other restrictions, did not allow it to fulfil its ambitions.
