Sarah Whitty is a market‑leading adviser in social housing finance, widely recognised by clients as “the go‑to adviser” and “one of the OGs of social housing finance.” She advises on all aspects of funding to the social housing sector, including high profile and high quantum transactions across a wide range of funding products from bi-lateral and syndicated loans (secured and unsecured), green and sustainability linked loans, private placements, joint ventures and development finance, as well as advising on complex mergers and acquisitions, due diligence, transfer and securitisation of social housing loan portfolios and advising on insolvency and housing administration.

Beyond social housing, Sarah brings more than 20 years’ experience advising financial institutions on global syndications and acting for borrowers and lenders on real estate finance across portfolio acquisitions, investment and development facilities spanning residential, retail, hotel, healthcare and student accommodation assets. She regularly structures sophisticated joint ventures with local authorities and overseas SPVs, aligning commercial objectives with robust governance and funding execution.

Recent experience

• Advised over 20 separate bank funders and institutional investors (representing circa £3billion of debt) on the merger of Sovereign Housing Association Limited and Network Homes Limited to create Sovereign Network Group. This was one of the largest mergers in the Social Housing sector in recent years which created one of the largest housing associations in the UK with over 82,000 homes
• Advising an institutional investor on the acquisition of a portfolio of social housing loans with a value of over £2.5 billion
• Advising a middle eastern bank on a £282million development finance of a high-profile site in central London
• Advising M&G Investment Management Limited on a bespoke funding structure to fund the acquisition of build-to-rent properties within a multi-tenured portfolio designed to de-risk development programmes of housing associations or house builders.
• Advised four separate lenders on the £530,000,000 syndicate split and refinancing of bpha Limited.