Southern Housing Group delivers robust performance in 2016/17

Southern Housing Group, one of the largest housing associations in London and the south east of England, released its Annual Report and Group Financial Statements for the year 2016/17.

Results show consistent year on year operating financial performance underpinned by robust levels of liquidity and covenant headroom, an encouraging increase in customer satisfaction as well as an increase the number of homes the Group provides.

Every penny of the Group’s £62m surplus and more has been reinvested in building new and improving existing homes to those who need them and delivering services to our customers.

In 2016/17 the Group invested £114m in its homes – £16m in improving existing homes and £98m in delivering a total of 393 new homes. The Group also started to work on 416 additional new homes across London and the South East.

Throughout the year, the Group maintained its G1, V1 rating from the Homes and Communities Agency, and its A1 (negative outlook) rating with Moody’s Investor Services.

James Francis, Group Finance Director at Southern Housing Group, said, “The Group’s results demonstrate that being a strong business is key in helping us to deliver our social objectives, we are proud of what we have achieved over the last year and the platform it provides for the future”.

 “As well as developing new homes, we continue to invest in developing our communities – in the last year alone, we have generated more than £1.6m in benefits and grants for customers and helped 566 people into employment or training.”

Key highlights for the Group during 2016/17 include:

• An increase in the number of new homes delivered, from 199 in 2015/16 to 393 in 2016/17.Turnover was £200m (FY16 £178m) – an increase of £22m.
• At £157m (FY16 £154m) the Group’s core business of social housing lettings generated 78% of turnover (FY16 87%).
• The Group’s surplus from operations was £65m. This represents an increase of £7m compared to the prior year – £6m of this increase was from non-social housing lettings, which included a surplus of £5.5m from Phase 1 of the Group’s award-winning development, Bow River Village. The remaining £1m came from social housing lettings in the first of four years of rent reductions.
• Customer satisfaction grew from 73% to 74%This is an encouraging increase as the Group continues to invest in achieving customer service excellence. 

The full Annual Report and Group Financial Statements 2016/17 which include the Group’s Value for Money self-assessment, can be found at www.shgroup.org.uk/annual-reports