Port of Leith Housing Association (POLHA) is planning to deliver over 480 new homes, including mid market housing, to Leith and North Edinburgh by 2020.
To make this possible, POLHA has secured a unique deal which combines a £10m revolving credit facility (RCF) with Bank of Scotland and a £35m private placement (PP) with Canada Life Investment. POLHA was supported by Capita as treasury advisors and Harper Macleod as legal advisors.
The revolving credit facility will run until 2019 and will be paid down in stages. Likewise, finance from the 30-year private bond will be drawn down in stages over the next 2 years and will provide financial support to the new housing over the next 4 years.
Keith Anderson, chief executive for POLHA, said: “The mix of short-term funding with a longer-dated private placement provides us with a flexible and tailored finance package to support our needs. It is also clear to us that even through the recent political uncertainty that the capital markets have demonstrated their support for the work we do and for our future growth plans.”
“The Bank of Scotland and the Lloyds Capital Markets Team have supported us every step of the way as we have secured our new funding facilities, providing us with certainty around availability of funds and long term rates for our development programme.”
Chris O’Neill, relationship manager in the social housing team at Bank of Scotland, said: “Port of Leith has exciting development plans and we’re pleased to support them as they build new homes and continue to regenerate areas around Leith and North Edinburgh.”
“This new funding demonstrates the appetite the investment community has for the sector and shows how a combination of conventional funding and private placement can provide tailored and flexible funding arrangements for housing associations.”
David Marchant, who heads up Canada Life Investments, added: “The team at Canada Life Investments has worked with numerous housing associations over more than 20 years. Over that time we have developed a variety of funding solutions to meet our borrowers’ needs and we are delighted to have put in place this long term relationship with Port of Leith.”
POLHA has been providing high quality, affordable homes to Edinburgh for over 40 years and is currently delivering over 2,700 homes including mid market housing.
