Saudi Real Estate Refinance signs pact with ANB to buy housing finance portfolio

Saudi Real Estate Refinance Company (SRC), wholly owned by the Public Investment Fund (PIF), today, June 29, signed a partnership agreement with Arab National Bank (ANB) to provide long-term liquidity in the housing financing market.

The move will boost the rate of Saudi homeownership to 70% by 2030, in line with the objectives of the Vision 2030 housing program.

The agreement was signed by Fabrice Susini, CEO of SRC and Obaid Abdullah Al-Rasheed, Managing Director and CEO of ANB.

As per the terms of the agreement, SRC will purchase a significant portion of ANB’s housing finance portfolio and provide liquidity to ANB, which will provide greater homeownership opportunities for over two million of the bank’s customers.

Fabrice Susini, CEO of SRC, said that the company will continue to cultivate partnerships to help realize the objectives of the housing programme, one of the Vision 2030 programs, through facilitation of liquidity provision to originators and enabling affordability of home financing to Saudi families.

Salah Bin Rashid AlRashid, Chairman of ANB, said that the partnership with SRC will enable the bank to recycle the liquidity resulting from the sale process and inject it back into the real estate financing market.

“This will also stimulate the bank’s refinancing activity through capital and risk management tools and will expand the ever-growing base of beneficiaries who stand to gain from the bank’s financing solutions, enabling them to realize the dream of owning a first home.”

Earlier this year, SRC issued its largest government-backed sukuk worth SAR 4 billion, which was oversubscribed by 2.15 times. In April, SRC received an “A2” long term issuer credit rating from Moody’s and “A” long term issuer credit rating from Fitch Ratings.