Slaughter and May advised the National Wealth Fund (formerly UK Infrastructure Bank Limited) (“NWF”) in relation to a guarantee of up to £350,000,000 to Barclays UK Corporate Bank (“Barclays”) in relation to a portfolio of loans to social housing registered providers for the purposes of retrofitting social housing in the UK.
Barclays will deliver £500,000,000 of lending to the social housing market that has been enabled by the guarantee provided by the NWF. The flexible and competitively priced loans will support housing associations to meet their net zero ambitions. Social housing represents almost 15% of all homes in fuel poverty in the country and 10% of total housing emissions for the UK. The development of this guarantee with Barclays forms part of ongoing efforts by the NWF to improve financing to the social housing sector, a fundamental pillar of the Government’s warm homes plan.
This alongside, the £400,000,000 retrofit guarantee to Lloyds Banking Group, on which we also advised the NWF, marks the first investment by the NWF since Chancellor Rachel Reeves announced that UKIB has transformed to become the NWF.
Slaughter and May worked with the NWF’s internal legal and business teams to develop this product and implement the transaction.
