Deal: King & Wood Mallesons has been working with an independent Commonwealth entity, the National Housing Finance and Investment Corporation, on its debut fundraising and financing transactions.

Value: Varied

Area: Housing, Corporate

Key players: Partner John Eagleton and lawyers James Cain and Tony Lui led the deal team from King & Wood Mallesons, with support provided by Helena Cvitkovic, Annabel Deans, Liqing Mao, Ricky Melamdowitz, Rebecca Rajanayagam and Katya Shliapnikoff.

Deal significance: The National Housing Finance and Investment Corporation is dedicated to improving housing outcomes for Australians, and help reduce pressure on housing affordability, according to King & Wood Mallesons.

King & Wood Mallesons originally advised the Commonwealth Treasury on the establishment of the National Housing Finance and Investment Corporation and has continued to partner with the organisation on all aspects of its operational establishment and market-facing activities, the firm noted.

The first wave of deals announced by the corporation includes:

• The corporation’s debut $315 million 10-year social bonds issuance, which was four times oversubscribed.
• The low-cost funding of long-tenor loan facilities for six community housing providers
• $140 million in financing commitments for a 330-dwelling delivery by Compass Housing Services under the NSW Social and Affordable Housing Fund program.

The firm said the transactions mark an early demonstration of the corporation’s transformative financing and signals capacity to deliver complementary and facilitative activities in the growing community housing sector.

Lead partner on the deals John Eagleton commented on King & Wood Mallesons’ involvement with the National Housing Finance and Investment Corporation, saying “we are part of a collective whose focus is to improve housing outcomes for Australians”.

“At the firm’s core we aim to make a valuable contribution to reducing inequality and poverty; a central theme of our 2022 strategic vision for our pro bono practice and broader community impact program,” Mr Eagleton expressed.

“This extends through our transactional work, where our sector leadership endeavours to ‘pay it forward’ by advising public agencies and frontline providers to enable them to do what they do best,” he continued.

Pointing to the work being done by the independent body, Mr Eagleton noted his team’s contribution to the “highly effective policy vehicle of this kind augments the expertise and drive of its board, officers and personnel and its dedicated housing sector engagement”.

Lawyers Weekly recently reported on Hall & Wilcox’s advice to Compass Housing Services and Hume Community Housing Association in the first round of the National Housing Finance and Investment Corporation loans.