REG - Peabody Cap - Annual Financial Report

Marriott InternationalAnnouncement

21/09/2023 10:15

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RNS Number : 1201N  Peabody Capital PLC  21 September 2023

Peabody Group Accounts published (including Peabody Trust, Peabody Capital
PLC, Peabody Capital No.2 PLC)

Peabody has today published its Annual Report for the year ended 31 March
2023. The annual reports have also been published for Catalyst Housing
Limited, Peabody Capital PLC and Peabody Capital No.2 PLC.  The full report
is available at
https://www.peabodygroup.org.uk/media-centre/news/investors/locally-focused-peabody-publishes-annual-report/
(https://www.peabodygroup.org.uk/media-centre/news/investors/locally-focused-peabody-publishes-annual-report/)

This is the first year of Catalyst Housing Limited and its subsidiaries
joining the Peabody Group, with the focus on creating a new, locally focused
Peabody - closer to our residents and better connected with communities.

Investment in existing homes

We now have 107,449 homes within the Peabody Group.  In 2022/23 we invested
£179m in improving our homes and spent a further £177m on routine and
cyclical maintenance. Together this makes a substantial combined spend of
£356m in existing homes during the year. Over the next five years we
anticipate spending over £2bn on maintaining and improving our existing
homes.

We completed over 256,000 repairs with a satisfaction rating of 83%. We tested
boilers and gas appliances in more than 45,850 homes and completed 12,935
electrical safety tests. Our teams carried out safety checks in over 7,000
blocks, inspecting fire doors and emergency lighting and making sure that
common areas were kept clear.

Almost 78% of our homes are rated EPC C or above which continues to improve
year on year.  We secured a further £27.3m in grant to invest in making our
homes more energy efficient. We are matching this with £25m to upgrade
thousands more homes in the next three years.  Further details are set out in
our recently published Sustainability Strategy which is available at
https://www.peabodygroup.org.uk/media/3v4p0yhh/peabody-sustainability-strategy-23-26.pdf
(https://www.peabodygroup.org.uk/media/3v4p0yhh/peabody-sustainability-strategy-23-26.pdf)

Getting closer to residents, customers and communities

We are working hard to improve overall resident satisfaction across the Group.
 Our increased investment and renewed local focus are starting to make a
positive difference and we're committed to continuous improvement in our
services.

Our rents remain substantially below market levels at an average of £127 per
week and an annual subsidy of £621m. 17,438 people benefitted from our care
and support services in London and the home counties. We supported 443 people
into work, provided 546 people with energy advice and invested £10m in
community activities across the Group. This included giving £1.1m directly to
people in the community to start their own local initiatives.

 

We also helped 3,526 people with advice and support to improve their skills
and 689 people to achieve qualifications. Our annual jobs fair connected more
than 1,600 job seekers with 60 employers and a wide range of services and
support.

 

New homes and sustainable places

We invested more than £550m in our new homes programme during the year,
completing 2,399 new homes and starting 2,376 more. 78 percent were for social
rent and other affordable tenures including shared ownership. We also provided
525 market sale homes to help subsidise the development of much-needed
affordable homes and were able to support 469 households to own more of their
shared ownership home, generating £81m to be reinvested.  With a strong
pipeline of top-quality new homes, we'll continue to do what we can to help
tackle the housing crisis through sustainable long-term placemaking.

 

Surplus for the year

Our operating surplus before changes in investment property valuations was
£257m, compared to £213m in 2022. This shows Peabody's financial resilience,
which was further strengthened by the transfer of Catalyst's £1.8bn net
assets on 1 April 2022.  This supported our extensive investments in our
homes and places in 2022/23.

Our overall operating margin before investment property valuation was 23%
compared to 32% in 2022. As we set out in July our operating margins were
impacted during the year by challenging economic conditions including high
inflation, rising interest rates and labour and material shortages.  The
reduced margin also reflects increased spending on repairs and maintenance as
well as higher sales volumes.

In the autumn we reprofiled the delivery of new homes with partners to prevent
exposure to an undue level of risk. We're prioritising investment in our
existing homes and locally focused services. However, we're also well placed
to continue delivering new affordable homes due to careful financial
management. We also took decisive steps to hedge our exposure to interest rate
rises in the year as an important response to the difficult economic backdrop.

Despite the economic challenges we've invested substantially in our existing
homes to make them safer, more sustainable and energy efficient and to better
meet the needs of our residents. Our operating surplus has been fully
reinvested in our homes and our communities and in subsidising new social and
affordable homes.

New Directors

On 1 September 2023 Eustace Xavier was appointed to the Peabody Trust Board
and will sit on the Audit & Risk and Finance & Treasury Committees.

On 19 September 2023 Martyn Burke joined the Peabody Trust Board.

 

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

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