Firm leads the way in finance deals for housing

TROWERS & Hamlins is celebrating the achievement of an impressive stranglehold on the public housing market after helping a housing association raise £105 million in the largest venture of its kind.

The firm says it has now helped the housing movement raise £5 billion of private finance, amounting to more than 60 per cent of the £8.5 billion raised altogether.

The most recent stock issue handled by the firm was for the Preston-based North British Housing Association, which issued £105 million of guaranteed secured stock, the largest ever single issue by a housing association.

Trowers reached the £5 billion landmark earlier this month when it helped Rushmoor Housing Association secure an £89 million loan in a deal to finance the transfer of housing stock from Rushmoor Council.

The practice, based in Lincoln's Inn, estimates it has acted as legal advisor in three quarters of all the successful transfers of public sector housing stock.

Adrian Carter, a partner in the Trowers finance group, said that the firm had been well placed to take advantage of the surge in housing association activity which had been prompted by government legislation in the late 1980s.

"It is a market that we have been involved in since the 1960s when it was small," Carter said.

"When the market expanded we were well placed to take advantage of it."