REG - LiveWest Treasury - Trading Update March 2022

Moody'sAnnouncement

13/05/2022 16:30

For best results when printing this announcement, please click on link below:
http://newsfile.refinitiv.com/getnewsfile/v1/story?guid=urn:newsml:reuters.com:20220513:nRSM4914La&default-theme=true

RNS Number : 4914L  LiveWest Treasury PLC  13 May 2022

LiveWest Trading Update for the 12 months ended 31 March 2022

LiveWest issues its unaudited group trading update for the 12 months ended 31
March 2022, with comparatives to the audited position for the 12 months ended
31 March 2021.

 

Financial and Operating Performance

Turnover for the period of £271m is higher than in 2021 (£244m) due to £7m
higher rental and other lettings income and £20m due to higher shared
ownership and open market sales.

 

Operating costs were £26m higher in the period mainly as a result of £16m
higher cost of sales on the sale of shared ownership and open market homes.
Repair costs were £9m higher both due to spend returning to normal levels
following the lower level of spend in the period to March 2021 as a result of
COVID and increases for fire safety costs and new energy efficiency spend.

 

Net Interest Payable is £8m lower as 2021 included a £9m cost of
restructuring fixed rate swaps.  Surplus for the period is £53m (2020:
£46m).

 

 Statement of Comprehensive Income
                                                  12 months  12 Months
                                                  Mar-22     Mar-21
                                                  £m         £m
 Turnover                                         271        244
 Operating Costs                                  (209)      (183)
 Surplus on Disposal of Properties                19         20
 Operating Surplus                                81         82
 Net Interest Payable                             (31)       (39)
 Revaluation of investment property               2          -
 Movement in Fair Value of Financial Instruments  1          3
 Surplus for the period                           53         46

 Financial Indicators
                                                  12 months  12 Months
                                                  Mar-22     Mar-21
 Operating Margin on Social Housing Lettings      27%        31%
 Gross Margin on Shared Ownership Sales           21%        23%
 Gross Profit Margin on Open Market Sales         21%        20%*
 Sales as Percentage of Turnover                  26%        21%

*Gross Profit Margin Percentage on Open Market Sales is before an accrual for
additional work required on an historical scheme. The Margin falls to 14% with
this included.

 

Sales of open market (our share only, if part of a joint venture) and shared
ownership homes totalled 403 units for the year (2020: 335).

 

Sales and margins on housing sales continue to perform strongly with shared
ownership margins slightly reduced in the year due to the mix of sites. As at
31 March 2022, we had 64 shared ownership stock units of which 13 were
unreserved (March 2021: 100 stock/32 unreserved) and 10 open market stock
units (our share only, if part of a joint venture) and 3 of which are
unreserved (March 2021: 8 stock 4 unreserved).

 

Housing Properties (net of depreciation) have increased to £2,220m from
£2,142m at March 2021. Net Debt has increased to £883m (March 2021: £851m).

 

Customer satisfaction is 87% (March 2021: 90%). Void losses for our general
needs stock were 0.56% (March 2021: 0.47%). Rent arrears were 2.03% (March
2021: 2.02%).

 

Liquidity

At 31 March 2022 LiveWest had liquidity of £421m, consisting of available
undrawn facilities of £402m, and available cash of £19m.

 

Development

800 affordable units were handed over in the year (2020: 701). We have a
contracted pipeline of 2,414 affordable homes (March 2021: 2,504).

 

Building Safety

At 31 March 2022 100% of homes had an up to date Fire Risk Assessment (March
2021: 100%). 99.99% of homes had a valid Gas Safety Certificate (March 2021
99.98%) and 100% of rented homes meet the Decent Homes Standard (March 2021:
99.99%).

 

Board and Executive Team Changes - 12 months to March 2022

LiveWest Homes Ltd: Andrew Wiles retired from the board in February 2022.
Joanna Crane and Rahul Jaitly were appointed on 31 March 2022.

 

Rahul has over 25 years experience working across a number of industry sectors
providing broad global IT leadership, digital transformation / innovation
management and board advisory services for private equity / venture
capital-backed companies. He is currently a Non-Executive Director at Surrey
and Borders Partnership NHS Foundation Trust, a Trustee of Change Grow Live
and a Non-Executive Director at PA Housing. He previously served as the Group
Chief Information Officer at L&Q Group and held senior roles at Kuoni
Group, Universal Music Group, GlobalNetFinancial.com and the Financial Times.

 

Joanna has more than 25 years in banking and financial services, most recently
at the European Investment Bank in Luxemburg. She has worked across a range of
disciplines within both UK, EMEA and International operations, beginning her
career at Credit Suisse in private banking before moving into corporate
banking and structured finance. A focus on strategy and communications led to
several years in IT during European Monetary Union and Y2K and thence to HR,
to lead on Organisational development and change management.  Joanna has led
strategic transformation projects and organisational design initiatives, and
has a particular focus on career development and equal opportunities in both
public and private sector businesses.  Joanna has been a NED in the NHS since
2009, chairing Quality and Risk committees and is currently Senior Independent
Director at University Hospitals Sussex. Joanna recently moved to Devon and
lives in Totnes.

 

LiveWest Treasury plc: there were no changes to the membership of the board.

 

LiveWest Rating

LiveWest Homes Ltd is rated A2 (stable) by Moody's (Mar 2022), and G1/V1 by
the Regulator of Social Housing (March 2022).

 

END

 

For more information, please contact:

Andrew Hart, Director of Corporate
Finance                        01392 814444

 

https://www.livewest.co.uk/about-us/for-investors
(https://www.livewest.co.uk/about-us/for-investors)

Disclaimer

The information contained herein (the "Trading Update") has been prepared by
LiveWest Homes Limited (the "Parent") and its subsidiaries (the "Group"),
including LiveWest Treasury plc (the "Issuer") and is for information purposes
only.

The Trading Update should not be construed as an offer or solicitation to buy
or sell any securities issued by the Parent, the Issuer or any other member of
the Group, or any interest in any such securities, and nothing herein should
be construed as a recommendation or advice to invest in any such securities.

Statements in the Trading Update, including those regarding possible or
assumed future or other performance of the Group as a whole or any member of
it, industry growth or other trend projections may constitute forward-looking
statements and as such involve risks and uncertainties that may cause actual
results, performance or developments to differ materially from those expressed
or implied by such forward-looking statements. Accordingly, no assurance is
given that such forward-looking statements will prove to have been correct.
They speak only as at the date of the Trading Update and neither the Parent
nor any other member of the Group undertakes any obligation to update or
revise any forward-looking statements, whether as a result of new information,
future developments, occurrence of unanticipated events or otherwise. The
information contained in the Trading Update is unaudited.

None of the Parent, any member of the Group or anyone else is under any
obligation to update or keep current the information contained in the Trading
Update. The information in the Trading Update is subject to verification, does
not purport to be comprehensive, is provided as at the date of the Trading
Update and is subject to change without notice.

No reliance should be placed on the information or any projections, targets,
estimates or forecasts and nothing in the Trading Update is or should be
relied on as a promise or representation as to the future. No statement in the
Trading Update is intended to be a profit estimate or forecast. No
representation or warranty, express or implied, is given by or on behalf of
the Parent, any other member of the Group or any of their respective
directors, officers, employees, advisers, agents or any other persons as to
the accuracy or validity of the information or opinions contained in the
Trading Update (and whether any information has been omitted from the Trading
Update). The Trading Update does not constitute legal, tax, accounting or
investment advice.

Figures quoted in the update are based on unaudited management accounts which
are subject to review and further adjustments, for example in the areas of
pensions, investment property valuation and taxation.

 

This information is provided by RNS, the news service of the London Stock Exchange. RNS is approved by the Financial Conduct Authority to act as a Primary Information Provider in the United Kingdom. Terms and conditions relating to the use and distribution of this information may apply. For further information, please contact
rns@lseg.com (mailto:rns@lseg.com)
 or visit
www.rns.com (http://www.rns.com/)
.

RNS may use your IP address to confirm compliance with the terms and conditions, to analyse how you engage with the information contained in this communication, and to share such analysis on an anonymised basis with others as part of our commercial services. For further information about how RNS and the London Stock Exchange use the personal data you provide us, please see our
Privacy Policy (https://www.lseg.com/privacy-and-cookie-policy)
.   END  TSTBKNBBQBKDQPD