20 Jan 2014

Aviva Commercial Finance has provided a 25 year, £50 million loan to Inspired Spaces Wolverhampton to build and maintain two new secondary schools for the city, Deansfield Community School and Health Park School.

The schools are some of the last to be built under the £270 million Building Schools for the Future investment programme (BSF), which has been replaced by the Priority Schools Building Programme.

As leading lenders in the private finance initiative (PFI) market, Aviva Commercial Finance will continue to lend on educational projects in addition to a variety of other infrastructure schemes across the UK including medical centres, hospitals, student accommodation, fire and police stations.

Toni Miller, head of new business at Aviva Commercial Finance, said: "We're delighted that we've been able to finance this BSF project, working together with Inspired Spaces to provide two new schools. This deal represents a good long term investment for Aviva and for our annuity customers, and it will benefit the local community in Wolverhampton greatly.

"Aviva will actively be looking to help finance the next generation of schools through the new Priority Schools Building Programme."

Carillon Services is the facilities management provider on the properties.

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If you are a journalist and would like further information, please contact: Melissa Loughran: Aviva Press Office: 01904 452791: 07800 691947: Melissa.loughran@aviva.co.uk

Notes to editors:

Aviva provides insurance, savings and investment products to 34 million customers worldwide.

We are the UK's largest insurer with over 14 million customers and one of Europe's leading providers of life and general insurance. We combine strong life insurance, general insurance and asset management businesses under one powerful brand. We are committed to serving our customers well in order to build a stronger, sustainable business, which makes a positive contribution to society, and for which our people are proud to work.

We are ranked as one of the UK's top ten most valuable brands and Aviva Plc is in the top 10% of socially responsible companies globally in the Dow Jones Sustainability World Index.  In 2012 we invested £5.7m into our UK communities. One in three of our employees were involved in community investment activities which included giving nearly 30,000 hours.

Aviva is working in partnership with Railway Children through the Aviva Street to School programme to get children living or working on UK streets back into everyday life, especially education. Find out more at www.aviva.co.uk/street-to-school/

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