Peabody Group (incorporating Peabody Trust, Peabody Capital PLC, Peabody Capital No.2 PLC and TCHG Capital PLC)

This is an unaudited consolidated trading update for Peabody Group for the six months ending 30 September 2025.

Highlights for Peabody Group

Commenting on the results, Peabody's Chief Financial Officer, Phil Day said: "We're continuing to prioritise investment in residents' homes and improving services. We've started to see an improvement in our financial performance, but we know we still have more to do. We're listening to residents and working together with them to help provide the support and services that local neighbourhoods need, whilst making sure we deliver value for money.

We anticipate the benefits of the comprehensive spending review will support our ongoing improvement journey and have been actively engaging with government and other partners to maximise its impact."

Financial performance

Turnover from our core operating activities increased by £15m in the six months to 30 September 2025, compared to the same period last year. Our operating margin rose to 30%, from 27% in the prior year. Rent collection was stable at 98%.

Our social rents remain low at an average of £147 a week and we continue to offer a wide range of support for residents. Staircasing continues to perform strongly, supporting people to own more of their home and bringing in additional income.

We sold 210 empty properties that were unsuitable and unsustainable as part of our long-term plan, generating income of £68m. In the same period, we re-let 1,301 homes - six times that number, providing much-needed homes for people on the social housing waiting list or in unsuitable accommodation. We also made £57m in development land receipts. This income will be reinvested in residents' homes.

We continued to make good progress simplifying our operations and governance structures and are still pursuing opportunities to raise additional capital to invest through the sale of non-core assets. While the completion of new build sales is progressing at a slower rate than forecast, we expect to see an improvement in the second half of the current financial year.

Interest costs have increased in line with expectations following higher levels of borrowing. We expect debt levels to peak in the current financial year.

Investment in residents' homes

In the six months to 30 September, we invested a total of £210m in residents' homes. This included £106m on capital improvements, of which £20m related to building safety. During the period, we spent more money repairing and refurbishing empty properties that will be re-let to new residents, as well as specialist works and damp and mould-related improvements. We spent a further £104m on repairs and maintenance, compared to £93m in the prior year, with a particular focus on ensuring we meet safety and regulatory compliance standards.

We welcome the implementation of Awaab's Law, which came in at the end of October. We feel we are well prepared, have made appropriate financial provision and are on track to meet all statutory deadlines.

With access to the Building Safety Fund for social rent properties, we hope to be able to carry out the work needed to improve all of Peabody homes over 18 metres by end of 2029.

Our Housing Properties are recorded at a cost of just under £12bn, increasing by £125m over the last 6 months.

New homes, development and sales

We invested £215m building new homes during the first six months of the year, completing 658 homes for residents to move into. We started on site with the construction of 234 new homes. We continue to prioritise our existing pipeline with around 5,500 homes currently under construction, including through joint ventures.

Sales revenue in the period was £48m, with a further £71m of sales exchanged or reserved after the half year. We have faced completion challenges at our Wornington Green development in West London, but we expect these to ease as the year progresses.

The current levels of homes to be sold reflect the peaks and troughs of development activity. The volume and age of stock held for sale is shown in the table below:

Liquidity

We continue to retain strong access to liquidity with over £1.1bn of cash and undrawn facilities available. Our gearing continues to be relatively low when compared to peers, and 75% of our borrowing is on a fixed-rate basis. We have over 39,000 properties not currently used to support borrowing.

We continue to receive strong support from our funding group, with £350m of additional facilities secured in the last six months, including £250m from the Affordable Homes Guarantee Scheme.

Ratings and certification

We are rated G1, V2 by the Regulator of Social Housing, and expect to receive a grading against the consumer standards during 2026. We are rated A3 (stable) by Moody's, A (negative) by Fitch and BBB+ (stable) by S&P.

Performance, priorities and positive impact  

At the half year, the results of our Tenant Satisfaction Measures among residents who rent their home remain steady, albeit with limited sample sizes. Among shared owners, we have seen a solid improvement of more than 2% across a range of measures when compared to the full year 2024-25. We expect to see further improvement as the contractual arrangements for repairs we put in place over the last 12 months to support our local service delivery model deliver results.

Since September, we have published several reports on our performance, priorities and our positive impact. These are available on our website:

·    Group Annual Report 2025 - Investing in homes and services highlights how during the year we focused on maintaining and improving residents' homes, while putting the foundations in place to deliver better services to residents in their local neighbourhoods.

·    Environmental, Social, Governance (ESG) Report 2025 - Working together to create sustainable places shows our progress and performance against the 46 metrics in the Sustainable Reporting Standard (SRS). 

·    Resident Review 2024-25, summarises the year's performance and achievements specifically for residents.

·    Resident Impact Report 2024-25 - Listening and acting - how you've made an impact outlines the positive impact residents have had on how Peabody operates during the year.

Statement of Comprehensive Income - Peabody Group

Note: Figures quoted in the update are based on unaudited management accounts, which are subject to review and further adjustments.

Contact: Anthony Marriott, Director of Treasury & Corporate Finance or Ben Blades, Assistant Director Corporate Affairs.