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Home Group Limited

Trading update for year ended 31 March 2023

Home Group Limited (Home Group) issues its unaudited Group trading update for the twelve months ended 31 March 2023. 

Commenting on the results, Helen Meehan, Chief Financial Officer said:

"In the year to 31 March 2023, we experienced external factors that have proved challenging, including inflationary pressure on our supply chain, the cost of living crisis impacting our customers and rising interest rates. We have shown resilience and despite these challenges, delivered a surplus before tax of £24.9 million.

Another effect of the economic climate was the regrading of our viability status to V2 by the Regulator of Social Housing in November 2022. We had been V1 for many years and along with a number of other housing associations, were regraded in November 2022.

More recently we have seen our S&P rating reaffirmed at A- (stable outlook), an outcome we were pleased with. S&P reflected on our positive response to the economic pressures, in particular a planned reduction in our development ambitions and reduced exposure to the property sales market. They also acknowledged the flexibility we have in our plans which would allow us to respond to any headwinds facing the sector.

We take a risk-based approach to decision making and have taken steps to de-risk our plans in light of external factors, including reducing our development plan over the next 5 years and changing the tenure mix. We will continue to pro-actively monitor risks and manage them accordingly.

Over the last year, we invested heavily across the business in building new affordable homes and ensuring our existing ones are fit for purpose. We invested £152 million improving and maintaining our customers' homes - an increase of over 35% in comparison to the previous year.

We are immersed in doing the right things for our business and customers, including supporting our customers through these challenging times. Our financial inclusion team have supported 2,149 customers over the last year, maximising their income by £5.7 million. Our customers are at the heart of our business and we continue to be focussed on delivering our customer promise."

The full trading update is available at:

https://media.umbraco.io/home-group-heartcore/fi0ijzyh/trading-update-to-31-march-2023.pdf

For further information, please contact:

Steve Hallowell

Director of Treasury and Investor Relations

M: 07736 097160

Email:  steve.hallowell@homegroup.org.uk