Healthcare and social housing

Financing infrastructure

Barclays is a major provider of finance to the infrastructure sector globally. In Europe, Barclays Infrastructure Funds has a portfolio that includes healthcare facilities, schools, university accommodation, transport, government office accommodation and waste water treatment.

Barclays Infrastructure Funds has supported UK universities in developing new facilities. This includes a green student housing scheme at Lancaster University which is now being replicated on other campuses. We financed Oxford Churchill Hospital, part of the John Radcliffe Group of hospitals, where geothermal technology is used to assist in heating the facility in winter and cooling it in summer.

We are active in funding infrastructure projects across Africa. In 2009, Absa entered into a US$150m funding arrangement with the International Finance Corporation (IFC) to finance projects which will encourage economic development in some of the poorest regions of sub-Saharan Africa. With its management of the US$150m IFC facility, strategic involvement with the US$630m Pan-Africa Infrastructure Development Fund in which Absa Capital is also the second largest investor, and approximately US$150m of direct infrastructure investments, Absa Capital is a leading private sector investor in Africa’s infrastructure.

Capital markets solutions

Barclays is active in helping public authorities raise finance for infrastructure and development, including the building of hospitals and schools. Transactions have included a US$950m bond issue for the Los Angeles Unified School District and US$50.8m of qualified school construction bonds for the Baltimore City Board of School Commissioners. Barclays managed the New York City Municipal Water Finance Authority’s inaugural US$723m Build America Bonds issuance.

In the US higher education sector, we have helped finance more than US$2bn of new projects that are Leadership in Energy and Environment Design (LEED) certified. We have worked with universities such as Yale, Michigan and Texas in order to provide funding for new facilities that are energy efficient, offer improved indoor environmental quality and built-in recycling collection locations.

Social housing

The social housing sector in the UK is mostly made up of charitable organisations that provide high-quality, affordable homes. Most tenants are on low incomes but many Housing Associations also seek to serve a wider segment of the community, creating affordable homes for sale and providing accommodation for key workers including teachers and hospital staff.

We are a leading provider of finance in the capital intensive social housing sector, including bank finance and debt capital markets.

In the US affordable housing sector, Barclays has raised funds for a number of our state housing finance agency clients, including those in Colorado, Idaho, Massachusetts, Michigan, New York, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Utah and Virginia. We helped these clients raise a total of US$1.37bn for the construction and financing of housing for low- and moderate-income residents. In addition, we provided liquidity facilities to Colorado, Idaho, Michigan and Utah for a total of US$600m to help them to repay expensive bank borrowings in an environment in which liquidity was otherwise unavailable in this sector.