HBOS is poised to buy more than £1bn of social housing businesses in a bid to cash in on Gordon Brown’s new ‘national priority’. Daily Telegraph

It is understood that Bank of Scotland Integrated Finance, a subsidiary of HBOS, agreed at the weekend to buy a significant stake in social housing maintenance company Apollo Group. The bank is also believed to be a frontrunner in an auction to take a major holding in rival social housing business Keepmoat.

The purchases are expected to value Apollo at £410m and Keepmoat at £700m, and will augment HBOS’s portfolio of housing-related purchases. Last year, it became partowner of housebuilders McCarthy & Stone and Crest Nicholson.

Last month, Brown revealed plans to spend £6.5bn on social housing and at least £8bn on affordable homes during the next three years, and set a target of building a further 3 million homes by 2020.