Blend completes £25m retained bond sale to Ongo Homes via BondAuction inaugural trade — priced within one business day of drawdown notice
The Housing Finance Corporation, the UK’s leading affordable housing aggregator, has today announced that its Blend Funding Plc (Blend) vehicle has completed a £25 million drawdown for Ongo Homes (Ongo) from the retained portion of Blend’s 2032 bond. The transaction was executed as the inaugural trade on BondAuction, the primary debt capital markets auction platform.
The drawdown is being made under Ongo’s existing instalment fee facility with Blend, providing Ongo with cost effective, fixed rate finance aligned to its investment and development plans. By using previously retained Blend 2032 bonds, execution was exceptionally swift, within one business day of drawdown notice to pricing the transaction. The deal demonstrates the Housing Finance Corporation’s ability to respond quickly to borrower demand and efficiently deploy prepositioned capital markets funding.
Using BondAuction to execute the retained-bond sale underscores Blend’s commitment to innovation in funding delivery, enabling more efficient execution and competitive pricing for borrowers across transactions of all sizes.
The £25 million bonds were sold at a yield of 4.885% and a re-offer spread of +79.9 basis points over the reference Gilt (equivalent to circa +108.3 basis points over SONIA), reflecting compelling execution in context of alternative financing options available for Ongo.
This latest transaction follows a series of successful new benchmark and tap issues through Blend, placing £660 million 7 year benchmark, inclusive of £250 million retained for future issuance, and £350 million of new Blend loans agreed in 2025. Together, these transactions highlight the depth of investor appetite for high quality affordable housing credits and the growing value an existing Blend instalment fee facility brings alongside the retained bond structure in providing swift and cost-effective funding to housing associations.
Jakub Palowski, Relationship Manager, The Housing Finance Corporation: “Today’s transaction underlines the strength and certainty of the Blend model in meeting housing associations’ evolving funding needs. By deploying retained bonds via BondAuction’s inaugural trade, we have been able to provide Ongo with swift access to competitively priced, shorter‑dated capital markets funding that supports its long‑term plans for homes and communities. The flexibility of the instalment fee structure has empowered Ongo to take advantage of opportunities at the right time whilst maintaining normal course of business and strong operational liquidity.”[LA1] [JP2]
Ashley Harrison, Director of Resources and Commercial Services, Ongo Homes: “We welcome this drawdown under our instalment fee facility with Blend, which gives us certainty over funding at a time when investment in our homes and services has never been more important. The ability to access pre‑arranged capital markets funding in a single, efficient transaction is a valuable part of our financial strategy and helps us to continue investing in safe, affordable homes across our communities.”
Spencer Maclean, Co-Founder, BondAuction, said: “We are delighted that our platform has supported this transaction for Blend and Ongo Homes, demonstrating how auction‑based execution can bring greater efficiency and transparency to the primary debt capital markets. By enabling investors to place bids in a single, streamlined process, BondAuction helps issuers such as Blend secure robust demand and competitive pricing while giving housing associations like Ongo reliable access to capital to support their long‑term investment in homes and communities.”
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About The Housing Finance Corporation
The Housing Finance Corporation has been the UK’s leading affordable housing aggregator for more than three decades, providing innovative funding solutions for 149 housing associations across all four nations of the UK. The Housing Finance Corporation has amassed a near £8bn loan book to date and continues to expand its range of financial products to serve the needs of the social housing sector. The Housing Finance Corporation has made significant contributions toward solving the UK’s affordable housing crisis, having funded 32,000+ homes under Affordable Housing Finance Plc (AHF), which oversaw the government’s initial Affordable Housing Guarantee Scheme. The aggregator launched Blend Funding Plc (Blend) in 2018 which has grown to provide committed facilities to 33 housing associations totalling over £1.9bn. In February 2025, the organisation announced the launch of a groundbreaking £150m partnership with the National Wealth Fund (NWF) to finance retrofitting of affordable homes alongside its new lending vehicle THFC Sustainable Finance Plc (TSF).
For more information: https://thehousingfinancecorp.com/
About Ongo Homes
Ongo offers around 11,500 homes across Greater Lincolnshire, South Yorkshire and surrounding areas, providing safe, secure, and affordable homes to tenants through a range of community support and investment activities.
Ongo’s commercial companies operate both for profit and to support the core business through service provision, with profits from these companies being invested back into homes and community initiatives. A strong community focus is at the heart of everything Ongo does, with its own recruitment agency, dedicated employment support and mental health support teams, and two community hubs operating in areas in which they work.
They have an ambitious Corporate Plan which runs from 2024-2029, setting out clear and measurable targets. You can see more on this on the website.
For more information: https://www.ongo.co.uk/about-ongo/
About BondAuction
BondAuction is regulated by the FCA (UK) and AFM (Netherlands) and provides an auction platform for the Primary Debt Capital Markets, ensuring significant improvements in the new issue process benefitting issuers, underwriters, and investors. Building on over 75 years’ experience amongst the principals in running new issues and delivering transformational technology, the BondAuction is a transparent, efficient, and secure platform for issuers and underwriting banks to auction primary debt transactions and connect to institutional investors.
For more information: https://bondauction.com/
