A2dominion 28 Regulatory News (54XE)

A2Dominion Housing Group's Half Yearly Performance Update covering the period to 30 September 2024

A2Dominion Housing Group announces the following update for the period to 30 September 2024.

Financial Performance

The Group's performance for the first six months to 30 September 2024, shows an operating surplus which is broadly flat when compared to the performance over the same period for last year.

Turnover increased year on year by £14.3m. This is due to a £7.8m increase in rental income to £130.1m (2023 £122.3m) a 6.3% year on year increase and an £8.4m increase in sales turnover. Sales turnover includes £30m from land sales partly netted off by a reduction in first tranche shared ownership and private sale of £11.2m and £10.4m.

At 21.0%, the operating margin is slightly lower than the prior year. Responsive repair costs increased by £4.4m which is in large part due to a rise in the volume of work. There was also an increase in planned maintenance spend in the period and building safety costs of £9.4m as we continue to invest in our existing stock. The increase in interest costs year on year is due to 2023 including a one-off gain of £5.3m from early repayment of a loan.

The decrease in the Group's fixed asset and investments is due to property disposals. The drop in current assets is due to lower work in progress as a result of sales, and the decrease in the development pipeline. Total creditors have reduced, which is largely attributable to scheduled repayments of debt, and repayments of revolving facilities.

Operational Performance 

Customer: Customer satisfaction is very important to us. We monitor this though the customer perception Tenant Satisfaction Measures - https://a2dominion.co.uk/en/About-us/Tenant-Satisfaction-Measures. For the first 6 months of the year, overall satisfaction with our services is 51.2%. The key areas that our customers would like us to improve relate to how we respond to enquiries, the quality of our repairs service and how we handle complaints. These are areas which feature heavily in our improvement plans and the Voluntary Undertaking. Over the next 12 months, we are focused on improving customer satisfaction by driving service improvements to make sure that the work we are doing is having a positive impact for our customers. We continue to prioritise supporting customers to meet challenges around affordability, support and well-being. In the first 6 months of this year, we have delivered £4.9m worth of social value through our supported housing, tenancy sustainment and community investment teams.

Development: The Group's delivery has successfully handed over 354 units during the first six months of the year of which 29.1% (103 units) are for our affordable tenures and we are forecasting 926 units to be handed over by 31 March 2025. The current development pipeline from 2024/25 onwards totals 1,210 units. We are also working on a Property Investment Strategy which includes a development and regeneration plan going forward.

Treasury:

As at 30 September 24, the Group's loan facilities and borrowings are summarised as follows:

In addition to the £360.3m of undrawn facilities, the Group had £24m of cash.

As at 30 September 2024, the Group's overall fixed rate ratio was 87.9% (September 2023: 84.5%) and the average borrowing rate is 4.64% (September 2023: 4.50%).

We retain over 16,000 unallocated or unencumbered properties across the Group with a security value of around £1.9bn.

Further Information

An Investor Update presentation is available on our website: https://www.a2dominiongroup.co.uk/content/doclib/170.pdf