Choice Housing Agrees To £70m Loan With Ulster Bank

Choice Housing has finalised a new £70 million loan with Ulster Bank that supports the landlord's plans to invest in more than 875 affordable homes in Northern Ireland.

Currently, the association is in the process of developing 947 new homes spread across 16 projects throughout Northern Ireland. This includes flagship housing schemes such as Rosses Gate in L'Derry, the King's Hall in Belfast, and St. Clare's Convent on High Street in Newry.

Choice Housing has recently completed the construction of 90 new homes on the former Park Avenue Hotel site in East Belfast. With the backing of the bank, Choice Housing plans to develop hundreds of additional homes for both social and private tenure by the year 2025.

Savills Financial Consultants helped Choice Housing agree the new 15-year arrangement.

Michael McDonnell, Chief Executive of Choice Group, said: "We are pleased to announce this new loan facility from Ulster Bank. As a result of this arrangement, we are able to access funds quickly and effectively and have fixed our cost of long-term finance.


"The cost-of-living crisis, high inflation and geo-politics have impacted every sector across society and social housing is no exception. Whilst our performance in terms of meeting our social homes targets has been good, this facility will support us greatly as we take forward our development plans.

"We engaged with Savills Financial Consultants to find a tailored, competitive financing solution that aligned with our wider business objectives to invest more in our social housing pipeline. We are very pleased with the engagement with Richard and Claire at Ulster Bank and the resulting financial package"

Richard Lusty, Relationship Director at Ulster Bank, said: "Ulster Bank is proud to be the preferred Banking partner to support this transaction. Supporting the social housing sector in Northern Ireland is aligned with our purpose of helping people, families and businesses to thrive."

Claire McKeown, Associate Director at Ulster Bank added: "The structure of the facility demonstrates the strength of the relationship that Ulster Bank has with Choice and Savills, alongside the wider benefits of being part of NatWest Group. Working in partnership with our NatWest Markets colleagues, we were able to provide Choice with a tailored and flexible solution that helps to achieve their goals and ambitions, alongside managing interest rate risk in more challenging economic times."

Alex Morgan, Director at Savills Financial Consultants, said: "We have worked closely with Choice from the outset of this transaction to achieve a flexible solution that provides our client with the certainty they require, without over-committing in a high interest rate environment. The teams across all parties to the transaction have worked hard to deliver a tailored solution for Choice which meets all of the objectives set at the start of the process."