Eastlight Community Homes raises £70m to fund development

08/08/2024

New built houses on the Mount Hill estate in Halstead taken from the view of a drone.

Eastlight Community Homes, which manages 14,500 homes across the East of England, has raised £70m in a bond issuance through the Affordable Homes Guarantee Scheme (AHGS).

The Essex-based housing association will use the funding to develop more than 3,000 new homes for social and affordable rent, as well as for shared ownership.

The loan has an all-in interest rate of under 4.65% and a maturity date of more than nine years, with the funding being issued under the AHGS’s December 2033 bond.

Eastlight, which is G1/V1 rated by the Regulator of Social Housing, worked with investment manager Venn, part of ESR Group, and treasury advisors Chatham, to secure the deal.

David Mullen, Executive Director, Finance, at Eastlight Community Homes, said:

“Eastlight is an ambitious, resident-led organisation, that’s dedicated to providing high quality, safe, decent and well-maintained homes. Our organisation was formed in July 2020, and earlier this year – less than four years later – we handed over the keys to our 1,000^th new home.

“This cost-effective funding, through bonds guaranteed by the UK Government, will enable us to keep up our momentum and get on with delivering more than 300 social and affordable homes per year, across the East of England.”