Peabody lifts Nationwide loan facility to £500m as building society becomes its biggest lender

Peabody has increased its borrowing with Nationwide by £100m to £500m, making the building society the housing association's largest lender, the group announced on 30 October 2026.

Peabody said the enlarged facility would support its continuing investment in residents' homes and the services it provides in local communities. It also said the loan was Nationwide's largest ever corporate loan, a claim attributed in the release to the building society's senior relationship manager, Steve Goodyer.

Phil Day, Peabody's Chief Financial Officer, said: "Housing associations are facing significant financial pressures as we balance the need to invest in existing homes, improve services and deliver much-needed new affordable housing."

He added that extending the agreement reflected a relationship built with Nationwide over many years and would help strengthen the group's financial resilience.

The spending it supports

Peabody said it spent £428m in the year to the end of March 2026 on looking after residents' homes, and a further £415m on new homes aimed at the shortage of affordable housing in London and the South East.

Spending in 2025/26	£m
Looking after existing homes	428
New homes	415

Steve Goodyer, Senior Relationship Manager at Nationwide, said: "The additional funding will provide Peabody with greater financial flexibility to continue investing in the quality, safety and sustainability of residents' homes".

A run of lender deals

The Nationwide agreement follows three other lender arrangements Peabody announced between December 2025 and February 2026.

On 18 December 2025 the group announced a refinancing with Santander made up of a £125m revolving credit facility and a £185m term loan. On 2 February 2026 it announced a new loan from the Co-operative Bank, which replaced a legacy facility the bank had provided to Town & Country Housing, part of the Peabody Group. In February 2026 it also announced a loan with CIC London, part of the French banking group Crédit Mutuel Alliance Fédérale.

Announcing the CIC London deal, Day said access to a competitive and diverse lending market was important for organisations like Peabody.

Financial position and regulatory grading

Peabody's Group Annual Report for the year ended 31 March 2026, published on 15 September 2026, reported group turnover of £1.09bn, up from £1.03bn the year before, and total assets of £13.8bn, up from £12.8bn. The group completed 1,911 new homes in the year, 78% of them affordable, and said its rents averaged £152 a week, which it put at £1.1bn below private market levels.

Ian McDermott CBE, Peabody Chief Executive, said in the annual report that the group's financial performance was strengthening and giving it a resilient platform from which to continue making improvements.

In a regulatory judgement following an inspection, the Regulator of Social Housing confirmed Peabody Trust at C2 for consumer standards, G1 for governance and V2 for financial viability. The regulator said Peabody had a number of financial risks to manage, including significant investment in existing homes. Its governance and viability grades had previously been updated in February 2025 following a stability check.

The regulator describes Peabody Trust as a charitable Community Benefit Society owning around 93,000 social homes. Peabody's own description is that it is responsible for more than 110,000 homes across London and the home counties.

Peabody welcomed the outcome of the regulator's inspection in a statement published on 29 April 2026.