78AQ Hyde Housing 40

Press release: EMBARGOED UNTIL 7am 28 August 2024

Hyde Group financial results - Year ending 31 March 2024

Hyde Group invests more than £100m in customers and their homes, as part of its strategy to put customers at the heart of everything it does.

Hyde's financial discipline and operational efficiencies enabled it to spend £109.2m repairing, maintaining and improving customers' homes in 2023/24, up nearly £15m on 2022/23 (£94.3m).

The housing association's core operating margin increased to 21.1% (2022/23: 20.2%), with core operating surplus increasing to £64.6m (£57.4m). The group is led by a not-for-profit charity and reinvests all its surpluses.

Andy Hulme, Hyde's CEO, said: "Customers are now at the heart of a coherent and consistent service. As well as continuing to invest in their homes, we've grown our customer-facing teams, reconnected with communities and expanded digital platforms to make it easier for customers to get in touch, and to make it easier for us to resolve their queries faster.

"Today, about three quarters of our colleagues are in roles serving our customers directly, and we're doubling the amount of time colleagues spend in our communities. We've also continued to build more genuinely affordable homes, to help solve the country's housing crisis."

Rod Holdsworth, Hyde's Chief Financial and Resources Officer, said: "Our financial discipline and efficiency programme have enabled us to increase investment, despite the financial challenges impacting the whole sector."

Mike Kirk, Chair of the Hyde Group, added: "We're confident that our strong financial performance, plus the recent acceleration of our plans, is making a real difference to people's lives, and is helping us fulfil our mission to provide homes and communities of which people can be proud."

Highlights

·    Improved core operating margin: Core operating margin increased to 21.1% (2022/23: 20.2%); core operating surplus increased to £64.6m (2022/23: £57.4m)

·    Improved adjusted operating margin: Adjusted operating margin increased to 33.4% (2022/23: 32.9%), with a slight reduction in adjusted operating surplus to £117.0m (2022/23: £119.7m), due to one-off transactions and fair value adjustments

·    Increased investment in homes: £109.2m was spent on maintaining, repairing and improving homes (2022/23: £94.3m)

·    Building more affordable homes: 630 homes were completed (2022/23: 625) and 823 homes were started (2022/23: 2,105). 4,760 homes are due to be completed between 2024 and 2028, about three-quarters of them affordable

·    Maintaining significant liquidity: We chose to maintain liquidity of £848m (2022/23: £873m), giving us significant financial resilience and giving comfort our customers that their homes are secure for the long-term

·    Sustained low cost of debt and low gearing: Hyde continued to maintain its low weighted average cost of debt at 3.9% (2022/23: 3.4%), despite increasing interest rates. Gearing also remained low, at 44% (2022/23: 46%)

·    Impairment charges: £39.4m impairment was recognised, due to contractor insolvencies, reappraisal of two developments and change of use of one scheme

·    Investing in excellent customer service:

o Hyde's neighbourhood approach, introduced in January 2024, allows colleagues to spend twice as much time helping customers and supporting communities than they could before. Hyde's 55 neighbourhoods average 750 homes (some as small as 250)

o About two thirds of colleagues are now in customer-facing roles

o Nine out of ten repairs are now completed by directly employed colleagues with 95% customer satisfaction with in-house teams

o The new Customer Service Centre can resolve nine out of ten customer enquiries at the first point of contact

o One in four customer transactions are now online.

·    Supporting communities: 32,503 (2022/23: 14,081) people were supported through Hyde Charitable Trust grants of £1.3m (2022/23: £1.1m). Suppliers delivered £9.6m in social value impact (£1.8m)

·    Diverse colleagues: Hyde's new inclusion strategy reinforces our culture of inclusive leadership and support of diverse colleagues. The median gender pay gap reduced to 1.8% (2022/23: 4.9%).

Key metrics

¹ A full reconciliation from our core operating margin to statutory operating margin can be found on page 77 of our Annual Report.

> Ends

For more information contact Max Soudain, Corporate Communications Lead, on max.soudain@hyde-housing.co.uk

Notes to Editors

About the Hyde Group

We provide some of the most affordable homes in London and the southeast and have done for almost 60 years. As a group led by a not-for-profit charity, we're here for the good of our customers. We do this by maintaining and investing in the homes we provide and building genuinely affordable homes too. Making sure people have a safe, affordable, and comfortable home to be proud of is what drives us and underpins our vision of a great home for everyone.

Our homes and services support a huge range of people from all walks of life. We're proud of the diversity of the communities we serve; it's a strength that binds people together. We care, and that's why we're committed to playing a leading role in our communities. Through our community spaces and partnerships, we're offering vital support and places for fun, giving people the chance to come together and stepping in where others no longer are. We're there for thousands of people who need some support, whether that's to maintain their independence in retirement, or to find a safe space in the hardest of times, so they can thrive again.

We're also investing for the future, improving our communities and making homes energy efficient and comfortable, to help cut customers' bills. As well as re-investing all our resources into homes and services, we're determined to build genuinely affordable homes. We have a responsibility to use our knowledge and expertise to help more people to have a home they can be proud of. We're working with our local authority partners, and like-minded investors, to find new ways to pay for affordable homes, because we can't stand by and wait for others to fix the housing crisis.

Importantly, we're changing, so we're easier to deal with and are closer to the communities we serve, improving what matters to our customers.

We're Hyde - we're here for our customers, and we're here for good.

To find out more about the Hyde Group visit www.hyde-housing.co.uk.

  www.hyde-housing.co.uk      @hydehousing      hydegroup      the-hyde-group