Andrew Jackson assists Hull social housing supplier secure £10m specialist property fund

Pickering and Ferens Homes, the supplier of social housing in Hull and East Yorkshire, has secured a £10m specialist funding package to assist its expansion.

Pickering and Ferens plans to develop 122 new homes during the course of the next three years.

To complete these plans, Pickering and Ferens has raised £10m via an aggregated bond issued by The Housing Finance Corporation through its Affordable Housing Finance (AHF) subsidiary, which earlier this year issued £161m bonds priced at 2.61%.

Regional law firm Andrew Jackson guided Pickering and Ferens through the process of bond issue and the subsequent securitisation of the bonds to secure the funding.

The law firm’s team was led by Philip Ashworth, corporate finance partner at Andrew Jackson, and included Helen Mellors, Matthew Smith and Grace Howell.

Claire Warren, Pickering and Ferens’ chief executive, said: “We were delighted at the detailed technical input received from the team at Andrew Jackson and more than pleased that tight deadlines were achieved to enable a timely drawdown of funds from AHF”.

Philip Ashworth added: “We are very pleased to have been able to help Pickering and Ferens achieve its objectives and secure the funding required to realise the much needed expansion of its successful social housing portfolio.

“This type of funding is unusual and was available to qualifying social housing providers through AHF, enabling them to flourish by having access to very competitive long-term funding lines.”

The transaction follows the Andrew Jackson team’s recent involvement in the arrangement of an £11m property funding line from the Luxembourg based specialist property fund, ICG Longbow Debt Investments No4. S.A.R.L, providing finance for the purchase of 87 student houses from the University of Hull for Kexgill Limited.

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