Triodos is hoping to repeat the success of its Bristol Together £1m bond, with a new £3m bond to create jobs and training and mentoring for ex-offenders in the Midlands.
Midlands Together, a newly-created CIC, plans to use money raised from the bond to buy empty and sub-standard homes and working with social enterprise partners employ ex-offenders in the repair, refurbishment and restoration.
Once the properties are fully restored they are then sold and the original capital, plus any profits, re-invested back into the business and used to pay investors.
Midlands Together is seeking to raise £3m to enable it to buy, refurbish and sell 15 properties a year, and through a constant recycling of the capital, invest over £2m into the wages, training and mentoring of 100-150 ex-offenders over the five-year life of the bond.
The £3m bond with be for a five-year term and offer investors an annual fixed return of 4 – 6 per cent secured against the company’s assets. In addition, availability of community investment tax relief (CITR) can increase annual fixed gross returns to 11.5 per cent for corporate investors and 15.1 per cent for highest rate taxpayers.
Midlands Together is the roll-out of the social enterprise Bristol Together. Bristol Together, founded and managed by Paul Harrod, raised £1m in bond funding to employ up to 200 ex-offenders to repair 40 empty houses. It has now been fully trading for 18 months, buying and renovating 7 properties and employing 35 clients in the process – only one of whom is known to have re-offended.
Dan Hird, head of Corporate Finance at Triodos Bank, commented: “We are pleased to be instrumental in the roll out of the Together model to the Midlands and confident the high calibre management team and board will make a success of it.
"We believe the investment will appeal to charitable trusts, housing associations, corporates and other sophisticated investors who want to be part of the solution to breaking the cycle of re-offending in a sustainable manner.”
A group of private individuals invested £250,000 into the £1m Bristol Together bond. It also raised finance from the Esmee Fairbairn Foundation, Lankelly Chase and the Barrow Cadbury Trust.
