Salford housing association Salix Homes has secured a £120m refinancing deal with banking partner NatWest.
The deal means Salix Homes, which owns and manages more than 8,000 properties in Salford, can deliver the ambitions set out in its Business Plan, which includes building more affordable and sustainable homes across the city.
Salix Homes was established as a stand-alone housing association in 2015 when its residents voted for the landlord to take over ownership of their homes from Salford City Council in a stock transfer, which it previously used to manage on the council’s behalf.
Since then, Salix Homes has invested more than £210m in homes and communities across Salford and built more than 290 new homes, with another 250 currently under construction.
Sue Sutton, chief executive at Salix Homes, said:
“This refinancing deal with NatWest marks another major milestone for Salix Homes, and will enable us to continue with our ambitious plans to deliver much-needed, new and affordable housing, as well as invest in our existing homes and communities.
“Against a backdrop of national financial uncertainty and the challenges facing the housing sector, we’re delighted that our long-standing funding partner NatWest continues to have confidence in our abilities to deliver a high-quality housing service in Salford we’re all proud to be part of, and we’d like to thank the bank and our advisors for their continued support.
“We will soon be launching our next Corporate Plan setting out our key priorities for the future, which aims to take us back to our roots and refocus on our core values to provide good quality homes and services to our customers, as well as build 100 new and affordable homes every year. Sustainability is a key focus, and we’re committed to building greener homes and neighbourhoods, while ensuring we continue to be well-governed and financially viable.”
The refinancing exercise has been supported by NatWest and Savills Financial Consultants.
Martin Skinner, director, housing finance at NatWest, said:
“Like Salix Homes, NatWest is dedicated to supporting our customers and communities and it is fantastic to be able to support the organisation with a new finance package that will help create new homes in Salford. We look forward to continuing to work closely with the team at Salix Homes and seeing the organisation thrive on the next stage of its journey.”
Alex Morgan, director at Savills Financial Consultants said:
“We are proud to have supported Salix Homes through this significant transaction that has navigated both market volatility and sector-specific challenges. The outcome materially reduces treasury risk whilst releasing capacity to allow the organisation to expand investment into its communities. We look forward to seeing Salix Homes use this platform to continue tackling the housing challenges in Salford by providing high quality homes in safe supportive communities.”
Current new-build developments being delivered by Salix Homes include the Greenhaus eco-apartment block on Chapel Street, which is a 96-home affordable housing development being built to Passivhaus standards, which is the gold standard in energy efficient design and construction, and has also been partially financed by NatWest.
Construction is also underway on the Neighbourhood development in Seedley, which is a 157-home development comprising social housing, homes for affordable rent and properties for shared ownership and outright sale.