Notting Hill Genesis releases annual report and financial statements for the year ending 31 March 2024

11 October 2024 London - Notting Hill Genesis, one of London's largest not-for-profit housing associations, has today published its annual report and financial statements for the year ending 31 March 2024. The publication of this report was slightly delayed for the reasons set out on 27 September 2024 and because of this, on 1 October 2024, trading in NHG's bonds was suspended. NHG has, today, applied for the listing of each of the bonds to be reinstated.

In challenging operating conditions, we have made good progress against our Better Together strategy, our commitment to providing better homes and a better resident experience. The 2023/24 financial year saw us lay some firm foundations from which to deliver significant improvements operationally, financially and for residents.

To create better connections, we built a new customer experience team, including a new complaints service, with the aim of improving the service we provide to customers and addressing issues more satisfactorily. We've also rolled out a new repairs hub with centralised teams helping us to take a more proactive approach towards identifying problems before they occur.

To deliver better homes for our residents, we have invested £40 million from our planned investment programme - quadruple the amount spent five years ago. We have delivered cyclical improvements to around 2,500 homes, replacing 733 kitchens and bathrooms.

To deliver better places, we completed on 822 new homes and started work on site for a further 858, demonstrating our commitment to providing more affordable homes for Londoners. We additionally introduced a new way of managing our larger estates, offering a more holistic service to the 10,000 households in those communities.

As we highlighted in our trading update in June, overall financial performance for the year was materially affected by some significant one-off items, including exceptionals and one-off operating costs. These related respectively to the recognition of building safety liabilities and asset impairments (exceptionals), and an internal software sale write-down and insurance settlement (one-off operating costs). Taken collectively, this resulted in an annual deficit of £90 million. But our underlying financial performance was stable and demand for affordable housing in London has never been higher. Our cost base has stabilised after the inflationary challenges of the last few years, and we continue to have a strong balance sheet with good levels of liquidity.

We also took the difficult but necessary decision to temporarily lower our development ambitions because higher interest rates and build costs have altered the economics of development. We are focused now on investing to improve our existing estate of more than 67,500 homes. Scaling back the rate of development will enable us to increase the investment in homes and services for existing residents from £500 million to £770 million over the next 10 years. This will make a huge difference to the lives of the 130,000 people who live in one of our homes.

Chief executive Patrick Franco said: "My first full year as chief executive has been one of challenge, change and progress. Despite the macroeconomic environment, in particular higher interest rates and inflation, we have taken important steps to become a more resident-focused organisation and have made good progress against our Better Together strategy. Delivering for residents will take time and requires significant operational and cultural change, but we have made a good start."

Trading in the new financial year has been as expected and we will provide further detail in our six-month trading update later this month.

 
http://www.rns-pdf.londonstockexchange.com/rns/9254H_1-2024-10-11.pdf