Project Acorn, Various Locations

Project outline

Acorn Housing is the first private finance Special Purpose Vehicle created by an AHB. 

Oaklee paired a €50M fund from NordLB with €20M from the Department of Housing’s CALF programme to deliver 217 homes for general needs social housing tenants. 

The homes are made up of 163 existing units refurbished and acquired through the Housing Agency Acquisition programme and 54 turnkey acquisitions from private developers.

The Acorn fund is an off balance sheet solution which assisted Oaklee to continue to grow and deliver much needed housing.

In 2016 Oaklee set the goal of securing private finance as part of it’s corporate plan. Centrus financial advisors were engaged to run a competitive process to secure low interest, non-recourse funding. Through this process NordLB were selected as the most competitive funding partner. 

In parallel, Oaklee worked with the Housing Agency to secure a pipeline of units to utilise the fund. These were paired with turnkey acquisitions from private developers.

Outcome

Oaklee delivered 163 existing units refurbished and acquired through the Housing Agency Acquisition programme and 54 turnkey acquisitions from private developers.