bpha cements 25th anniversary year with commitment to future house building off the back of strongest ever financial results
5 September, 2016
bpha’s 2015/16 financial statements show that the association has grown its housing stock from only 7,280 units in 1991 to 17,896 units in 2016. This includes the completion of 450 new homes in areas with some of the most acute need for affordable housing throughout Cambridgeshire, Bedfordshire and Oxfordshire.
The strong financial performance ensures the organisation’s continued viability and underpins its long-term commitment to build around 500 plus new homes per annum for the foreseeable future.
bpha’s 25th anniversary year has seen the delivery of a record net surplus of £17.8m and £80m of new funding raised through the Affordable Housing Guarantee Scheme, taking liquidity to its highest ever level. The operating margin of 46% for social housing activity remains one of the highest in the sector.
Other highlights during the 2015/16 year included:
- First open market sales through subsidiary, Bushmead Homes, to create profits for reinvestment in social housing.
- £23.2m invested in maintaining and improving existing homes.
- V1 and G1 viability and governance ratings maintained.
- 4,700 hours of volunteering donated by employees and tenants in our communities.
- 100% of homes met Decent Homes Standard.
- Extension of Help to Buy agency contract for South East and East of England, with over 7,000 equity loan completions.
- £100m restructuring of derivative portfolio resulting in a significant reduction of potential mark to market exposure.
Paul Gray, Chief Financial Officer, said: “The year to March 2016 has, by many measures, been bpha’s best so far, laying strong foundations for the future. Efficient management of our housing stock and careful investment decisions within a well understood and tight geography continue to ensure that we can deliver much needed new homes whilst strengthening our financial performance.
“Our strategy of growth through development results in younger, easier to manage, housing portfolio and robust stock condition data allows us to target investment in the most cost effective way. During the year we have significantly strengthened the Board and senior management, invested in staff recruitment and training and improved our systems which together facilitate a commercially driven focus to income maximisation and cost control whilst improving customer service.
“Our decision to fundamentally restructure our interest swaps and to raise new funding also resulted in improved liquidity, a lower cost of debt and materially lower exposure to margin calls. bpha is now in its strongest ever financial position.”
