BNP Paribas UK & Housing Association Clarion Announce £100mn Sustainability-Linked Loan
The sustainability linked structure is based on Clarion’s efforts to tackle unemployment among its residents
London, 30 January, 2020 – The UK’s largest housing association, Clarion Housing Group, announced it has recently secured a new 5-year £100 million revolving credit facility provided by BNP Paribas. The facility is structured as a sustainability-linked loan (SLL) where the margin is linked to Clarion achieving certain Social Key Performance Indicators (Social KPI).
The Social KPI measured is the number of people Clarion supports to find employment as a result of the Clarion Futures Jobs and Training programme. The success of the metric is measured during the immediate preceding financial year. Clarion will benefit from a lower interest rate margin on the loan, if it helps an agreed number of residents into employment.
The Clarion Futures Jobs and Training programme is delivered as part of Clarion Futures, the Group’s charitable foundation. It plans to invest £150 million over ten years to provide support, skills and opportunities to over 350,000 social housing residents across the UK. The SLL will be used to fund Clarion’s delivery of much-needed new homes.
Gareth Francis, Director of Treasury and Corporate Finance at Clarion, said: “Our successful jobs and training programme is the largest of its kind and last year helped over 4,000 people into employment. It is fantastic that banks such as BNP Paribas are recognising the impact of this work and providing funding at a lower interest rate, the savings from which we will reinvest back into providing new affordable homes and improving the lives of our residents. ”
David Reynolds, Senior Banker, UK Coverage, BNP Paribas, said: “The sustainability-linked loan mechanism is a powerful tool to support companies, communities and banks in applying innovation to tackle social and economic challenges, such as unemployment. This will be BNP Paribas’ fourth SLL in the sector. Almost half a million young people aged 16–24 are currently unemployed in the UK*, and finding innovative approaches to tackle this through collaboration between organisations is an important part of progressing sustainable development in the UK”.
* https://researchbriefings.files.parliament.uk/documents/SN05871/SN05871.pdf
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Press Contacts:
BNP Paribas
Alexandra Umpleby +44 20 7595 2436 Alexandra.Umpleby@uk.bnpparibas.com
Sarisher Mann +44 20 7595 8150 Sarisher.Mann@uk.bnpparibas.com
Clarion
Lucy Pond +44 207 378 5555 Lucy.Pond@clarionhg.com
About BNP Paribas
BNP Paribas is a leading bank in Europe with an international reach. It has a presence in 73 countries, with more than 196,000 employees, including around 149,000 in Europe. The Group has key positions in its three main activities: Domestic Markets, International Financial Services (whose retail-banking networks and financial services are covered by Retail Banking & Services) and Corporate & Institutional Banking, which serves two client franchises: corporate clients and institutional investors.
BNP Paribas employs more than 9,000 people across 10 business lines in the UK. These include Corporate & Institutional Banking, Exane BNP Paribas, Leasing Solutions, Arval, Real Estate (including Strutt & Parker acquired in September 2017), Asset Management, Cardif Pinnacle, Commercial Finance, Personal Finance and Vauxhall Finance. Around half of its employees are in Corporate & Institutional Banking, based in London, while the others are based in various offices across the country, including Belfast, Birmingham, Cardiff, Glasgow, Manchester.
https://www.bnpparibas.co.uk/en/
About Clarion Housing Group
Clarion Housing Group is the UK’s largest provider of affordable housing. We are committed to playing our part in tackling the housing crisis, both as a social landlord and developer of new housing.
More than 350,000 people call a Clarion home their home. Our mission is to provide and maintain good quality housing for our residents and to build communities through high quality design and placemaking.
We are a social business, reinvesting our profits into building new homes and providing support and opportunities to our residents through Clarion Futures, our charitable foundation.
www.clarionhg.com