PWLB briefing
Monthly Activity
PWLB Borrowing Activity — Monthly Commentary
August 2026
KPI Snapshot — Latest Month
| Metric | August 2026 | vs PM | vs LY |
|---|---|---|---|
| £ Borrowed | £526.2m | ▲43% | ▲139% |
| # Loans | 36 | ▲9% | ▲57% |
| WAR % | 5.24% | ▲21bp | ▲84bp |
| WAL (yrs) | 4.8 | ▲30% | ▲91% |
| Borrowers | 23 | ▲21% | ▲21% |
Volume & Activity
August delivered £526.2m across 36 loans, the strongest month of the 2026/27 financial year so far and 43% above July. Against a very soft comparator it is 139% up on last August's £220.4m. The gain is ticket size as much as count: average draw rose from £11.2m to £14.6m and the median doubled from £5m to £10m, while loan count moved only 33 to 36. Breadth also recovered — 23 distinct borrowers against 19 in July, with the top five at 64.7% of principal versus 67.1% last month. Rotation remains high: only four August names (North Lanarkshire, Harlow, Woking, Medway) also borrowed in July. Set against the last twelve months this is still a thin month — the rolling average is £1.42bn — and financial-year-to-date borrowing of £1.76bn across April–August is 38% below the £2.84bn raised in the same five months of 2025/26.
Rate & Tenor
WAR rose again to 5.24%, up 21bp on July and 84bp on last August — the highest monthly WAR since October 2023 and the fifth consecutive month above 4.8%. Loan-level rates ran from 4.55% (East Dunbartonshire, two-year HRA EIP) to 6.22% (Wolverton & Greenleys TC, 25-year no-concession EIP). The fitted rate-vs-WAL slope is +12bp per year of WAL off a 4.72% one-year intercept (excluding the single 50-year deal), effectively unchanged from July's +12bp and 4.70% — so the term structure itself barely moved. The increase in headline cost is therefore level and mix, not a steeper curve. WAL extended for a third straight month to 4.8 years, up 30% on July and 91% on last August, and the longest since November 2025.
WAL Distribution & Debt Profile
The centre of gravity moved out a bucket. 5–10y took £199.0m (37.8%), 3–5y £185.0m (35.2%) and 1–3y £127.7m (24.3%), with only £4.0m inside one year. July's clean 1–10y corridor was also broken at the top: £10.0m priced in the 30–50y bucket — the first 30-year-plus drawdown since December 2025 — plus £0.5m at 10–20y. The 20–30y and 50y+ buckets stayed empty. One deal does not make a trend, but after an eight-month gap in which no authority went beyond thirty years, it is worth flagging.
| Profile | £m | Share | Jul share | WAR |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Maturity (bullet) | 412.7 | 78.4% | 59.5% | 5.26% |
| EIP | 91.9 | 17.5% | 36.2% | 5.13% |
| Annuity | 21.6 | 4.1% | 4.3% | 5.20% |
July's rebuild of bullet risk went further. Maturity reached 78.4% of principal, up from 59.5%, while EIP halved from 36.2% to 17.5% and Annuity was flat at a token 4.1%. Amortising profiles are down to 21.6% from 40.5% in a single month. Combined with the shift out to 3–10 years, that puts £326m of bullet repayments into 2030–2032 from this month's business alone, with a further £72m falling due in 2027. Borrowers are accepting refinancing risk to hold WAL, rather than smoothing cash flow through EIP or Annuity structures.
Concession
99.4% of principal carried a concession, and July's tilt toward the smaller discount extended. Certainty -20bps took 81.9% (£431.1m, WAR 5.32%, WAL 5.0) against HRA -60bps at 17.5% (£92.0m, WAR 4.83%, WAL 3.9) — Certainty was 71.0% in July and only 42.7% a year ago. The two tiers now sit 48bp apart on WAR, but roughly 13bp of that is the 1.1-year WAL difference; strip tenor out and the residual is close to the 40bp gap in the discounts themselves. On the concession × WAL heatmap the hot cells are Certainty at 5–10y (£161.4m) and Certainty at 3–5y (£160.0m), with Certainty 1–3y at £95.7m; HRA is thinly spread at £32.0m / £25.0m / £35.0m across 1–3y, 3–5y and 5–10y. The lone Certainty cell at 30–50y (£10.0m) is Nottinghamshire. Local Infrastructure, Project, UK Infrastructure Bank and Capitalisation tiers again saw no activity. Non-concessionary borrowing was £3.0m across three parish and town council deals, all priced at or above 5.97%.
Top Borrowers
| Borrower | £m | Loans | WAR | WAL |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Swansea City & County | 103.1 | 3 | 5.43% | 5.0 |
| North London Waste Authority | 80.0 | 1 | 5.31% | 4.0 |
| Mayor's Office for Policing & Crime | 67.5 | 3 | 5.41% | 5.0 |
| Fife Council | 50.0 | 2 | 5.15% | 5.6 |
| Suffolk CC | 40.0 | 3 | 5.05% | 1.2 |
| North Lanarkshire Council | 30.0 | 2 | 5.29% | 4.3 |
| Harlow DC | 25.6 | 2 | 5.10% | 2.2 |
| Woking BC | 17.1 | 3 | 4.95% | 1.0 |
| Falkirk Council | 15.0 | 1 | 4.90% | 3.9 |
| Oxford City Council | 15.0 | 1 | 4.56% | 1.0 |
| Medway Council | 15.0 | 1 | 5.12% | 1.7 |
Swansea and North London Waste Authority together account for £183m — 35% of the month, and the top five reach 64.7%, marginally less concentrated than July's 67%. The leaderboard is dominated by large single-purpose bullet programmes rather than routine cash management: Swansea, NLWA and MOPAC alone are £250.6m of Certainty-priced Maturity debt at 4–6 years. At the other end, Oxford City's £15m one-year HRA bullet at 4.56% and Woking's three one-year Certainty draws at 4.95% show short-dated liquidity money is still being written well below 5%. The 87bp spread between Oxford at 4.56% and Swansea at 5.43% is almost entirely tenor and concession tier, not credit.
Notable Transactions
- Swansea City & County — £103.1m in three bullets on one day. On 25 August: £35m at 5.33% (4y), £35m at 5.43% (5y) and £33.1m at 5.53% (6y), all Certainty -20bps. A clean 10bp-per-year ladder and the largest single-day programme of the month.
- North London Waste Authority — £80m Certainty Maturity at 5.31%, 4y, drawn 26 August. The largest single ticket of the month.
- MOPAC — £67.5m in three identical £22.5m five-year bullets at 5.41%, all on 28 August. Month-end scale from a single London body.
- Thanet DC — the concession illustration. Two £5m EIP tranches on the same day (17 August) on identical 10-year terms, priced at 4.93% and 5.33%. The 40bp gap is exactly the HRA-versus-Certainty discount differential — the clean repeat of July's Harlow pair.
- Fife Council — tenor beaten by tier. On 7 August, £20m of five-year Certainty at 5.34% alongside £30m of six-year HRA at 5.03%. A year longer and 31bp cheaper.
- Nottinghamshire CC — the long end reopens. £10m Maturity at 6.15% to May 2076 (49.8y), drawn 12 August — the first 30-year-plus PWLB drawdown since December 2025. The same council took 48–50y bullets at 5.71–5.78% last December, so the long end has repriced roughly 40bp higher for the same borrower and product.
- Rate ceiling: parish and town councils. Wolverton & Greenleys TC at 6.22% (25y EIP, £490k) and Holyhead TC at 6.02% (17.5y annuity, £2m) — both no-concession and long-dated, setting the top of the range on product and tenor rather than market repricing.
Treasurer's Note
August reverses July on volume but reinforces it on price and structure: more money, more borrowers, higher cost, longer WAL. At 5.24% this is the dearest month of new PWLB debt since October 2023, and the 84bp year-on-year gap is worth roughly £4.4m a year of additional interest on the £526m raised. Three things to carry forward. First, Certainty -20bps at 81.9% of principal is doing much of the work in the headline WAR — the curve itself was flat month-on-month at +12bp per year of WAL, so check your own concession mix before reading 21bp as market movement. Second, amortising profiles have halved to 21.6% and bullets now dominate at 78.4%, concentrating £326m of this month's repayments into 2030–2032; that refinancing wall is being built at rates above 5%. Third, Nottinghamshire's 6.15% fifty-year bullet is the first long-dated print since December and sits 40bp above the same council's December pricing — if you have PFI or HRA business you have been deferring at the long end, that is the current marker, not last year's. Financial year to date remains subdued at £1.76bn, 38% below the same point last year, at a WAR 50bp higher.
For information only; not financial advice. Always verify rates directly with PWLB before making borrowing decisions.
Source: UK Debt Management Office — dmo.gov.uk/responsibilities/local-authority-lending/current-data