Slaughter and May advised the National Wealth Fund on its up to £350mn guarantee to Lloyds Banking Group to support the retrofit and decarbonisation of university estates across the UK

Slaughter and May advised the National Wealth Fund (“NWF”) in relation to a financial guarantee of up to £350mn to Lloyds Banking Group (“Lloyds”), enabling Lloyds to provide up to £500mn of lending to UK universities. This will support universities to invest in energy-efficiency upgrades and low-carbon heating across university campuses, helping to reduce emissions, lower long-term energy costs and modernise hundreds of buildings for staff, students and researchers. The guarantee allows Lloyds to offer longer-tenors and more flexible financing that helps make retrofit projects viable, accelerating energy-efficiency upgrades and heat decarbonisation across the higher education estate. These upgrades also help grow the UK’s retrofit capability – from local contractors to specialist engineers – supporting up to 4,000 jobs and strengthening the supply chain as universities upgrade complex estates.  

This builds on the existing social housing retrofit partnership between NWF and Lloyds where Lloyds have committed lending up to £500mn to support registered providers with the retrofit of social homes, supported by up to £400mn of financial guarantees provided by NWF. NWF have now provided more than £1.6bn in financial guarantees to accelerate the rollout of retrofit works, enabling projects to be delivered at scale, helping to stimulate UK retrofit supply chains and supporting progress towards the UK’s net zero ambitions.

Slaughter any May worked with NWF’s internal legal and business teams to develop this product and implement the transaction.