Housing group Places For People (48HX.L) today raised £140 million from the London Stock Exchange’s platform for retail investors.

Today’s success from the stock exchange’s ORB platform comes as increasing numbers of new issuers use the system aimed at opening up the bond market to the man on the street.

Evolution Securities acted as lead book-runner on the deal.

Pietro Poletto, head of fixed income at London Stock Exchange Group, said the listing of Places for People's bond will give private investors simple, transparent access to a completely new kind of issuer on the ORB, and allow them to support an organisation doing vital work in communities across the UK.

He added, ‘The oversubscription we have seen with this bond highlights the strength of private investor appetite for this kind of issuance in the UK.

'We look forward to facilitating further issuance from an increasingly broad range of issuers in the future.’

Steve Binks, group finance director at Places for People, he believed the success of the bond marks an important move towards a more creative and innovative financing structure for the housing association sector.

He said, ‘It shows that there is a strong appetite for individual investment in a sector which has a good credit rating, stable cash flows, and strong financial viability.’

The ORB was launched in February 2010 and there are now 148 on the platform. Retail investors wanting to find out more about how the ‘ORB’ works can do so by clicking here.