bpha, a housing association based in Bedford, today announced the completion of a £75m ten year Revolving Credit Facility with the Mitsubishi UFJ Financial Group’s (MUFG) banking arm, The Bank of Tokyo-Mitsubishi UFJ, Ltd.
The Bank of Tokyo-Mitsubishi UFJ, Ltd, is Japan’s premier bank and it launched a Social Housing offering last year that consists of a number of lending products. This is a notable transaction for the sector and one of the bank’s first loans to a registered provider.
Paul Gray, Chief Financial Officer of bpha said: “We are delighted to have agreed this ten year revolving credit facility with MUFG which offered competitive terms, fitted well with our debt maturity requirements and will support our ongoing development of new homes. The team at MUFG were straightforward to deal with and we look forward to working with them in the years ahead.”
This facility further builds on bpha’s work last year to increase liquidity whereby £80m of funding was raised through the Affordable Housing Guarantee Scheme. In addition, the £100m restructuring of bpha’s derivative portfolio resulted in a significant reduction of potential mark to market exposure. All of this work ensures the continued viability of our long-term commitment to build 500 plus new homes per annum for the foreseeable future.
Robert Bartlett, Executive Director, MUFG, said: “bpha were one of the first registered providers we approached last year and we are delighted to have been able to put this facility in place. The bpha management team have given us a great deal of confidence in being able to navigate the business through the ongoing changes within the sector and we very much look forward to building a long term relationship with such an important client.”