West Midlands housing association Bromford delivers strong results
South West and West Midlands housing association Bromford has announced another year of strong financial and sustainability performance with increased turnover, operating surplus and customer satisfaction.
Bromford has 44,000 homes spread across central and south west England.
Unaudited results for the 2023-24 financial year show turnover rose to £314 million, of which £267 million came from its core business of social housing lettings. Operating surplus (excluding asset sales) grew to £95 million from £91 million the previous year, while surplus after tax rose to £67 million from £64 million. The association once again recorded an operating margin on social housing lettings of 34 per cent.
During the year Bromford completed 1,191 new homes, fewer than the previous year when the association completed 1,265. However all 1,191 were for affordable tenures, including 551 for social rent. Its in-house construction team were responsible for delivering one in eight of the total completions. This figure is set to increase over the years ahead as it completed several land purchases over the past 12 months, including a site for more than 200 homes at Matson in Gloucestershire.
Chief executive Robert Nettleton said: “Despite persistently high cost inflation, which has had a material impact on many of our customers, and a government-imposed rent cap, we have maintained our key financial metrics and credit ratings. This has enabled us to develop new homes at scale, as we delivered 1,191 affordable homes in the year and continued to secure our pipeline for the years ahead.”
Chief finance officer Paul Walsh added: “We are pleased to report another strong set of financial results. We are determined to provide homes that our customers are proud to live in whilst remaining committed to financial discipline.
“Total turnover exceeded £300 million in the year with 85 c per cent coming from our core business of social housing. We are pleased to have delivered a social housing operating margin of 34 per ent, maintaining our performance from the previous year and continuing to deliver sector-leading performance.”
Director of treasury Imran Mubeen explained we have continued to unlock our balance sheet capacity, delivering new funding to finance our development and sustainability programmes. He said:
“We delivered £150 million of new drawn funding, as we co-created a new pathway to funding with Legal and General Investment Management to raise £50 million, and then returned to the traditional private placement market to secure a further £100 million with North American and UK investors. We also expanded our portfolio of revolving credit facilities to £450 million across six funders, all linked to our sustainability golden metrics. We continue to pioneer sustainable finance in our sector and our portfolio now includes the first loans linked to reducing our Scope 1, 2, and 3 carbon emissions, improving our customer advocacy and actioning our outstanding repairs.”
Looking ahead, director of development Amanda Swann said that Bromford is continuing to invest in delivering new homes for future customers to meet the demand for affordable housing in its operating area.
“We have ambitious future development aspirations, and plan to deliver circa 11,000 new low carbon homes by 2032, focusing on affordable tenures to support our core business,” she said. “We continue to leverage £240m of grant funding through wave two of our strategic partnership with Homes England."
