Incommunities in successful bond issue
Incommunities is delighted to announce it has priced a £250 million bond issue with £50m retained to support the delivery of its ‘Improving lives to 2040’ strategic ambitions and goals.
Incommunities provides affordable, high quality, mixed tenure homes to its customers. It builds quality homes for people no matter what their income bracket, from homes to buy and shared ownership, to affordable housing, social housing and retirement living.
The company was set up in 2003 following a stock transfer from Bradford Council. Incommunities has over 22,600 homes across Bradford District and other parts of West and South Yorkshire.
It has ambitious plans to deliver over 1000 social homes and 400 for market sale by 2025.
Incommunities new strategy outlines its ambitions to be a leading provider of smart affordable homes in the north and its continued commitment to using its strength and influence to improve people’s lives.
Following roadshows to investors last week, Incommunities raised £250m of new bonds. On the initial offer, Incommunities received over £1 billion of orders from nearly 50 institutional investors. Barclays and NatWest Markets were joint bookrunners on the transaction.
Earlier this month Incommunities received a very strong investment grade rating of A+ from Standard & Poor (S&P).
Geraldine Howley, Group Chief Executive of Incommunities said: "We are delighted by the level of interest in our debut bond issue. We are extremely proud of the work we do and this successful bond issue will ensure the financial strength we need to deliver our ambitious strategy."
"As a profit for purpose business we are pleased to have secured this funding which will allow us to both invest in, and act as a catalyst for other investment in homes, people, and communities in the North."
David Cassidy, Barclays Head of Social Housing said: "Barclays was proud to have been involved in this transaction to allow Incommunities to continue to invest in social housing to improve lives in communities in the Leeds City Region. The strength of the interest from capital markets investors reflects their confidence in Incommunities focus on the provision of general needs social housing and their trust in the Board and management teams focus on financial strength."
Dominic Brindley, NatWest Markets Head of Public Sector, said: "The NatWest Markets team is pleased to have assisted Incommunities to issue its debut capital markets transaction and provide funding that will increase the provision of social housing across the Leeds City Region. The size of the final order book for this £250m benchmark bond demonstrates the continued investor appetite for Social Housing credits."
Adrian Bell, Head of Social Housing at JCRA said "We are delighted to have advised Incommunities on its successful debut public bond. This represented the final stage of a major debt restructuring process designed to reduce interest costs, enhance the credit and extend the maturity of Incommunities’ loans.
"It was a complex process involving the need obtain a rating conditional on the restructuring, coordinate the sale of the bond with the restructuring and renegotiation of the bank debt and manage the cancellation of a large swap portfolio to coincide with the bond pricing. The professionalism and focus shown by Incommunities throughout the process was crucial to the successful outcome."