You are viewing 1 of your 1 free articles
Scottish social landlord lending breaks £5bn
The amount of money available to Scottish social housing landlords through loans and investment has broken the £5bn barrier for the first time, new analysis from the Scottish Housing Regulator has found.
The regulator’s report into social landlord’s loan portfolios, which sets out their borrowing and funding arrangements, found £5.24bn was available to landlords across the year ending 31 March 2018.
This marked the biggest increase in a decade, with the amount of money available up more than 6% on last year’s figure of £4.91bn.
Loans from banks accounted for £4.6bn of all money, with investment through bonds and the private markets accounting for £0.6bn
The Royal Bank of Scotland was the sector’s biggest lender providing just under £2bn of loans, which accounted for 36.7% of all the money lended to Scottish landlords.
READ MORE
Lloyds Bank was the second biggest lender providing £743m loans, representing 14.2% of all lending, while Nationwide was the third biggest with £634m.
HSBC and Blackrock also entered the Scottish housing investment market for the first time, with both organisations providing £100m each through bonds and private placements.
The analysis also found that Scottish social landlords were accessing funds increasingly from the capital markets with £645m raised over the 12 months, up on last year’s figure of £445m.
The majority of new borrowing was used to fund new development in Scotland with 79% of all money borrowed being spent on new development.
A total of 15% of new loans were used for the refinancing of organisations, while it was not specified what the remaining 6% was used for.
The overall debt for the social housing sector increased from across the year from £3.76bn to £3.92bn, with the sector drawing down more than £0.45bn and repaying just under £0.3bn.
Shaun Keenan, assistant director of regulation (finance & risk) at the Scottish Housing Regulator, said: “RSLs [registered social landlords] need access to funds at competitive rates to be able to invest in the homes and services they provide for their tenants and service users.
“So continued lender and investor confidence is good news.
“Nearly half of all new investment came from capital markets including two major new investors – HSBC and Blackrock, the world’s largest fund manager.
“As landlords work to contribute to the Scottish Government’s target to deliver 50,000 new homes by 2021, lender confidence will remain crucial.”
