Welsh HA consortium in £48m funding
Social Housing: May 2006
 The GENuS consortium of four housing associations in Wales has arranged £48 million funding with Nationwide BS and Barclays Bank to support development of about 550 homes following allocations of £37.5 million grant funding by the Welsh Assembly Government.
Nationwide BS is providing £30 million and Barclays £18 million.
The consortium funding deal is the first of its kind in the UK social housing sector.
It represents a novel approach to raising finance by RSLs.
With a single funding prospectus, the consortium has obtained significantly better terms and conditions than individual social housing landlords going to the market for much smaller loan amounts on their own.
The GENuS consortium was formed by Gwerin Housing, Eastern Valley Housing, Newport HT and Seren Group to act as a procurement vehicle in managing the development of affordable homes.
Councils of Blaenau Gwent, Caerphilly and Monmouthshire, Powys and Torfaen have signed up to partnerships working with the consortium.
Simon Jones, corporate director at Seren Group, says the consortium members recognised the potential benefits of a joint approach to raising finance.
'Whilst the actual facilities will be secured by the individual RSLs, the acceptance of Heads of Terms to the lenders has been signed in the name of GENuS by the RSLs who will borrow from that lender,' he says.
'The combined approach has achieved substantial reductions in the margins that we would have expected to pay had we negotiated the facilities separately.
'Additionally, by using a single firm of solicitors to agree a single form of loan agreement and by tendering for valuers together, we also expect significant efficiencies in arrangement costs.'
Jane Short, lending manager at Nationwide BS, says the society had sought to match the consortium's forward-thinking approach adopted by providing 'an innovative and flexible funding package' to meet the specific needs of members.
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