The New Shared Ownership Scheme – more questions than answers
06/10/2020
The Government’s proposed changes to the shared ownership scheme
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I specialise in finance and secured lending with a particular emphasis on social housing finance. My clients are housing associations, local authorities, private companies and funders. I advise on bilateral and syndicated loans, private placements and public bond issues. I also deal with loans to groups of borrowers, intragroup loans, bespoke funding special purpose and treasury management vehicles, security trusts and derivative transactions using ISDA documentation.
I have a wide range of expertise encompassing:
Corporate:
- Governance issues, regulatory compliance, charity law and powers;
- Formation of housing associations, registrations with (and deregistrations from) the HCA, rule changes, transfers of engagement, amalgamations and conversion into companies (and vice-versa);
- Group Structures, mergers, demergers, acquisitions and disposals and advice re commercial subsidiaries;
Finance:
- Bilateral and Syndicated loans to individual housing association and to housing groups;
- Private Placements;
- Public Bond issues;
- Loan restructurings and refinancings;
- Secured lending including development funding and bridging loans;
- Security trusts;
- Derivative transactions; and
- Intra-group loans;
Projects:
- VAT Savings schemes;
- Solar projects;
- Cost sharing vehicles;
- Joint ventures; and
- Large scale housing stock transfers.
Publications and conference speaking
I am the author of the NHF's book: "Understanding Loan Documentation" for board members and officers and have contributed to the NHF's Housing Finance Manual.
I have led workshops and spoken at the NHF Finance and Chartered Institute of Housing conferences on matters such as money laundering and new models of housing finance.
Career Highlights
- Leading the team on one of the first housing association bond issues outside of London and the South East: Longhurst Group's £250,000,000 bond;
- Advising on the first metropolitan local authority housing stock transfer which became the model used on all subsequent ones;
- I advised Halton Housing Trust on its debt restructure via several private placements totalling over £1,000,000;
- I led our team that advised the Chevin, Prospect and Trans-Pennine Housing Groups on their merger to form the Together Housing Group; one of the largest groups in the North;
- Advising Warrington Borough Council on its public bond issue (the first local authority bond issue in over ten years) and on its programme of loans to housing associations;
- I advised Gentoo Group on its unique funding structure comprising a public bond, bank debt and bespoke loans from the European Investment Bank all governed under a common terms agreement which raised over £500,000,000 facilities for the Group;
- Following the introduction of new regulatory regime for housing associations, I advised a non-RP charity on the formation and registration of a new housing association subsidiary including drafting bespoke provisions into the intragroup agreement to satisfy the Regulator's new requirements;
- I assisted the board of a housing association to navigate a path back to full regulatory compliance following a major breach of the regulatory regime.
He is commercial and positive, with a can-do approach.