Acorn Housing
Monday, 25 January 2021
ByrneWallace LLP recently concluded its comprehensive advices to Acorn Housing (a subsidiary of Oaklee Housing) regarding the acquisition of a portfolio of turn-key properties for social housing purposes, in particular the purchase of a 34 house development at Weston, Kettle’s Lane, Swords, Co. Dublin and a 12 house development at Cromwellsfort Court, Walkinstown, Dublin 12.
These acquisitions are the culmination of a 4 year project, in which ByrneWallace LLP advised Acorn Housing (and its parent Oaklee Housing) on all legal aspects of this pathfinder SPV social-housing deal, from initial negotiation of the loan documentation, finance agreements and project security package (to achieve financial-close of the deal in December 2017), right through utilisation (on a phased drawdown basis over the course of 2018-2020) of the €50m debt facility made available to Acorn Housing by German-based funder Norddeutsche Landesbank, which ultimately allowed for the purchase of over 200 homes around the country.
ByrneWallace LLP continues to act for Oaklee Housing and Acorn Housing (both of which are registered charities) in expanding their portfolios of social housing properties throughout Ireland.
The ByrneWallace LLP team who advised on the deal include Neil Dunne (Property), Deirdre McBennett and Michael O’Neill (Banking & Finance), Martin Cooney (Construction) and our ByrneWallace Tax Advisors Team.
For further details on the funding model for these transactions, see the press coverage below.
https://www.rte.ie/news/business/2018/0423/956532-oaklee-financing/
https://byrnewallace.com/news-and-recent-work/recent-work/oaklee-housing.html
For further details on the Cromwellsfort Court transaction, see the press coverage below.
For further details on the Weston transaction, see the press coverage below.
https://www.oaklee.ie/news/2020/september/launch-of-scheme-at-weston
