Clarion secures £150m facility from ABN AMRO

Clarion will agree a set of sustainability KPIs for the facility with ABN AMRO in the coming months.

These will be closely linked to Clarion’s sustainability strategy and its climate transition plan, which the group plans to publish later this year.

Where Clarion achieves the KPIs it will make a saving on the facility, which it will use to directly support the work of its charitable foundation, Clarion Futures.

In 2022-23, Clarion Futures helped more than 2,000 people to secure employment and almost 6,000 people to access training.

Clarion said that demand for support from its Clarion Futures Money service was high, with 17,656 money guidance and financial inclusion interventions made by the service and its external partners during the year.

It also awarded a total of £598,984 in grant funding to organisations including food banks, community groups and local charities.

Andrew Hill, director of treasury and corporate finance at Clarion, said: “We have been really impressed with ABN AMRO’s clear commitment to the social housing sector in the UK in recent years and we are delighted that ABN AMRO has joined our relationship banking group.

“Clarion places great value on these partnerships beyond just the finance they provide, and we look forward to delivering the wider societal and environmental benefits its commitment will allow.”

ABN AMRO has lent millions to the sector, including a £100m sustainability-linked loan to Platform in February and funding to Bromford, Vivid and Orbit last year.

Rutilio Merien, head of UK coverage real estate at ABN AMRO, said: “We are delighted to support Clarion with this new credit facility and the endeavour to include both sustainability and social-linked KPIs which align perfectly with ABN AMRO’s purpose of ‘banking for better, for generations to come’.

“The UK social housing sector faces challenges that go to the heart of society in terms of availability, quality and safety as well as reducing carbon footprint. ABN AMRO is proud to be able to play an active role in supporting Clarion and the sector.”

According to its results for 2022-23, Clarion saw its surplus fall from £186m in 2021-22 to £97m last year after the provider was impacted by a number of one-off costs.

These included £45m linked to a debt portfolio rationalisation project, £17m linked to the cyber incident it suffered in June 2022 and £24m of development provisions and impairments, primarily linked to contractor failure.

Excluding all one-off costs, the underlying net surplus was £185m, a drop from £206m in 2021-22.