11 August 2022
Growth trend continues as Bromford publishes financial statements
We continue to deliver a strong set of financial results posting improved net surplus and key operating margins for the third year running…
Bromford showcases another year of strong financial and sustainability performance
We have today published its annual accounts and sustainability impact report for the financial year ended 31 March 2023, setting out a record-breaking year of housebuilding, improved customer satisfaction and sector leading financial performance.
Turnover rose to £290m (2022: £284m). With a continued focus on core business, social housing contributed to 84% of turnover during the year, and our social housing operating margin of 34% remains at the leading edge of the sector despite the challenges of rising inflation. Overall margin remains above 30% again this year, and with interest coverage at 3.1x, the association continues to have significant capacity for future borrowing to realise the ambitions of our 2023 – 2027 corporate strategy.
We stepped up our investment in our existing homes to £56m as we continue to bring outstanding repairs to below 6,000 in line with pre-Covid levels. Over the life of our business plan we plan to invest £2bn in existing homes, which includes the full weight of our net zero carbon journey.
In addition, we invested £225m in our new homes programme, completing a record 1,265 homes during the year, of which 554 were for social rent, with one in five built by our in-house construction team. We continue to pursue an ambitious new homes plan with a pipeline of 12,000 new homes by 2031, over 90% of which will be affordable tenure.
Read our Annual report and accounts for the year ended 31 March 2023
Chief executive Robert Nettleton said:
Our results and achievements reflect our continued operational and financial strength during a period that saw significant challenges to our sector and the wider economy.
Against a backdrop of rising inflation and unpredictable financial markets, a continued cost-of-living crisis and uncertainty over social housing rents, our priority has always been the wellbeing of our customers and our people. So we are proud that our customer advocacy score has increased by 4% to 83% and that we retained our top G1/V1 ratings from the Regulator of Social Housing.
Our results flow from our clarity of purpose – investing in homes and relationships so people can thrive. We look to the future with optimism; we have now firmly stepped into our new 2023-2027 corporate strategy which puts place, scale and sustainability at the fore.
Paul Walsh chief finance officer added:
We have responded to future pressures created by the rent cap and rising inflation, driving cost efficiencies to maintain strong margins and re-imaging our business plan through several iterations to once again maintain our A2 /A+ credit ratings. We continue to enjoy significant covenant headroom and the financial capacity to meet the investment needs of our existing and new homes programmes.
We continue to drive sustainability reporting in the sector. In a sector first, we published our sustainability golden metrics in our year ending trading update to drive greater visibility, comparability and accountability of its ESG performance. Today, we have published the second iteration of our sustainability impact report, Building a sustainable future, alongside our annual accounts on a shared platform to set out the success and health of the organisation. The report adopts the sector’s Sustainability Reporting Standard, and highlights a number of key achievements across all pillars of ESG as we re-baselined our carbon emissions, hired over 1,000 new graduates and apprentices, and introduced 2,500 positive interventions to help its customers raise over £250,000 of additional income. We also successfully met the targets on our pioneering portfolio of sustainability linked loans with 87% of homes now at EPC C or above and our gender pay gap reduced to 6.5%.
Imran Mubeen, director of treasury, added:
We remain passionate supporters of the Sustainability Reporting Standard but our impact report will always go beyond the standard and continue to report against our own Sustainable Finance Framework and linked funding. This report acts as a common reference point for our customers, colleagues, funders and other stakeholders to learn about the great things we are doing for our people in our communities, but also in holding us to account against the commitments we have made and the further work we need to do. We continue to call for a unification across reporting authorities, the promotion of sustainability golden metrics, and an audit standard to provide even greater credibility to these reports.
