Legal & General has provided a £51 mln (€62.5 mln) loan to LNT Group, the parent company of UK care home operator Ideal Carehomes.
Legal & General has provided a £51 mln (€62.5 mln) loan to LNT Group, the parent company of UK care home operator Ideal Carehomes.
The 10-year debt facility will be used to support LNT Group’s strategic growth plans, including its aim to build between six and eight new care homes a year.
The loan is secured against a portfolio of mature care homes, providing strong cashflow cover and asset protection, and is believed to be the first time that tailored bilateral institutional debt finance has been provided to the care home sector.
The deal forms part of L&G’s wider UK housing and infrastructure investment strategy. Laura Mason, director of direct investments at Legal & General Capital, said: ‘L&G is a natural provider of longer term financing given its long-term annuity liabilities. We are therefore extremely pleased to have been able to work with the LNT Group, providing the stable financing that clearly benefits a sector such as this and which traditional markets are now less likely to be able to provide.’
Earlier this year, L&G announced it had agreed to forward fund and purchase five care homes in Suffolk with Care UK for £31 mln. The deal also follows on from L&G’s acquisition of a portfolio of 13 care homes let to Methodist Care Homes for £70 mln at the end of last year.
Ideal Carehomes currently operates 36 homes across the UK, working closely alongside local authority partners.