Trafford Housing Trust completes ground-breaking £275m refinancing deal

Trafford Housing Trust completes ground-breaking £275m refinancing deal

Trafford Housing Trust has completed a £275m refinancing deal which will  introduce a pool of new funders, including institutional investors, and replaces the previous £145m facility.

The new funding for the 9,000-home Trust is a mixed-maturity deal is unprecedented in the sector and £100m of new funding is available for on-lending to  joint ventures fuelling the Trust’s ambitious home-building plans, including the 50/50 house building joint venture with L&Q, one of the country’s largest housing associations.

The two organisations will each invest £80m to deliver 2,000 homes across the North West in the next four years.

The Trust’s Deputy CEO and CFO Larry Gold said: “Trafford Housing Trust is a financially strong group of companies and this deal demonstrates great confidence among funding institutions in the Trust’s governance, leadership and ambitious growth strategy.

“The housing crisis means that in Greater Manchester alone supply of new homes is around 4,000 annually, compared with a projected need of over 11,000 a year for each of the next ten years.”

Helen Rourke, director of finance, added: “The refinancing gives the Trust more control over our assets and greater potential to invest in our strategy to deliver better homes for residents and significant numbers of new homes of all types across the North West.”

The refinancing deal was arranged by Savills Financial Consultants and involves Lloyds Bank, BlackRock, Pension Insurance Corporation and Yorkshire Building Society.