Nationwide signs £120m deals

It signed a £60m deal with the country’s first stock transfer association, Chiltern Hundreds Charitable Housing Association, and a £60m deal with Wandle Housing Association in December.

The Chiltern deal comes after the merger of Chiltern Hundreds and Chiltern Hundreds Charitable Housing Associations in October last year. The association has consolidated £30m of old loans it had with Nationwide as well as adding £30m of new money. Many of the old loans were with banks such as BNP Paribas, which have stopped lending to housing associations and handed their social housing loan portfolios to Nationwide.

Group director of finance Andy Nicholl said the new money would be spent on development and would build about 500 homes over the next two to three years.

Wandle’s £60m deal is made up of £20m of refinancing of existing loans and £40m of new funds. The money will build 300 homes. Finance director Malcolm Wilson said: “There’s an improvement in terms and we managed to use some free security.”

He said the association used collateral that was no longer needed to back the old loan to borrow an extra £16m. The association will add in more security when it draws the rest of the additional funds in the new loan.