Great Places raises £200m bond

Published by Max Salsbury for 24dash.com in Housing and also in Development, Finance

Great Places Housing Group has raised £200m after issuing a bond.

It is the first exclusively northern-based housing association to issue a bond. £150m can be drawn upon immediately and the remaining £50m in the next two years.

Investors will see a return of 4.81%. Great Places manages more than 16,000 homes and the money raised will be used to fund its development programme.

Chief executive Stephen Porter, deputy chief executive Matthew Harrison and finance director Phil Elvy met more than 20 sets of investors during an intensive three-day roadshow presentation which took place in Manchester, Edinburgh and London.

This led to the issue being massively oversubscribed which helped tighten the credit spread achieved to 170 basis points.

Stephen Porter said: “This is fantastic news and demonstrates the financial strength of our business and our excellent reputation. It will allow us to continue to build much needed homes and I am delighted by the response of investors.”

The deal was jointly arranged by RBC Capital Markets, The Royal Bank of Scotland and Santander GBM.