Housing and care provider secures £95m finance deal

A Welsh housing and care provider has received finance of £95m which will enable the construction of up to 1,600 homes.The homes will be built by Linc Cymru in South Wales over the next ten years.JCRA advised the housing association on the funding, which also came alongside a full restructure of its bank debt portfolio.The total funding package included securing a private placement of £75m from two institutional investors, representing one of the largest placements by a Welsh housing association.The placement also included the introduction of a new investor to the Welsh social housing market.The private placement was structured with significant deferred issuance – two tranches, six and 13 months deferred – to reduce Linc’s short term cost of funds.The placement also included three staggered maturities to help manage refinancing risk (2048, 2044, 2054) while extending the weighted average life of Linc’s debt portfolio to almost 20 years.During the process, JCRA also introduced Handelsbanken to Linc, leading to a new £20m facility, representing the bank’s first short-term, flexible funding arrangement to a housing association in South Wales.