Diversification – commercial residential markets

Matt Cooper

Director of Treasury and Corporate Finance

Group Overview

We operate in over 100 local authorities, actively developing in about 30

£320m turnover

£75m surplus

56,856 homes

Aa3 Moody’s rating

OUR OBJECTIVES

Core Objectives

• To be a housing provider of choice;

• To maintain our financial strength; and

• To grow our business

Enabling Objectives

• Increasing our influence; and

• Being an employer of choice

A business for social purpose

WHY DIVERSIFY?

Funding Model

Grant Debt

Need alternative subsidy

• Market sale

– Generates a subsidy with return of capital

– Builds on Group’s experience and knowledge

– Fits geographical footprint of the Group

– Brings risks that need to be managed

Joint Ventures

• 50/50 JVs with developers

– Gain expertise from developer– Share risk and reward– Spread capacity across more projects– No recourse to social housing assets

Using JV experience to move towards in-house development

Build for Sale

• Return target

– Matrix based approach1. Planning2. Sales/Market3. Cost & delivery4. Knowledge/experience

» Eg. If 1 high; 2 medium; 3&4 low => 22% RoS

• Stress testing

Commercial return for taking a commercial risk

Our Financial Golden RulesThese internal rules were established 10 years ago and have been tightened over time. They are reviewed and reinforced annually by the Group Board.

• Debt service ratio to stay above 115%

• No reliance on sales to meet underlying obligations

• Regeneration of existing stock to be economically positive or neutral

• Contracted development to be covered by cash and available facilities

• Debt to turnover not to exceed 5

• Sales as a percentage of Turnover not to exceed 30% (excluding regeneration)

Business plan is stress tested against these

Development Programme

• Delivered 805 new homes during 2013/14

– Rent 539; shared ownership 198; market sale 68

• Affordable development

– 2011-15 AHP - 2,500 homes

– 2015-18 AHP - 1,800 homes

• Private development

– City Road – 200 units

– Farm Lane – 89 units

– Hampstead Reach – 60 units

– Blackfriars Road – 43 units

Balance delivery of social objectives with maintaining financial strength

Af-ford-able

Rent

Shared

Own-er-

ship

Market sale

MARKET RENT

Current market• Over the last century owner occupation has become by far the most common tenor

type; however, since the credit crunch this growth has slowed an started to reverse

• In this time PRS has filled the void with twice as many households privately renting now compared to the beginning of the millennium

• The growth in PRS is expected to continue

0%

20%

40%

60%

80%

100%Ownership by tenure type

Owner occupiedSocial housingPrivate rent

Source: DCLG

Investment• Majority of the yield is from capital appreciation which is more difficult to monetise

• Commercial property, which has a massive institutional investor base, is predominantly rental yield

• It is still very unclear whether this sector will become a more institutionally investor friendly market

Residential Commercial0

2

4

6

8

10

3.56.1

5.9 0.7

Historic gross yieldsCapitalRental

0%5%

10%15%20%25%30%35%40%

Institutional investment

Source: DCLG; IPD

Scope of review• Hold the PRS assets in a separate non/limited recourse vehicle

• The Group would provide an equity injection of and source external debt

• Focus on rental income but with some capital growth to ensure that we could liquidate the position if required

• Combined the Group’s appraisal assumptions with more generic sector specific ones

• Geographical spread

Findings• Can generate 3-6% net rental yield

• Rental returns are greater outside London and South East (by over 1%) however build costs may need to be below current assumptions to achieve developers’ profit or else it may not be viable

• On a mixed geographical portfolio we can generate c8.5% return over 40 years– 4% in year 1 and 6% by year 10– This return includes 25% developers’ profit– Capital return is required but is risky and difficult to predict

• Could increase return by focusing on specific areas • Need to be careful not to cherry pick• Market data tends to be on a broad area basis

Capital return is risky, but so is income…

100

105

110

115

120

125

130

CPIRental

Q1 2014 Prime Rental Values

Since peak Year on year

Central London -3.8% -0.6%

North West -10.1% -3.0%

South West 1.3% 0.1%

Commuter -3.2% 1.2%

Source: ONS; Savills

PRS - Summary

• Looking to generate commercial return• Does not meet any definition of

charitable or social activity

• Need capital appreciation• Difficult to predict

• Even with capital appreciation need developers’ profit

• Quicker return and less risk from building and selling the units

Not strategic but may be a tactical solution

CONCLUSION

• Need alternative subsidy

• Either commercial or charitable

• Commercial return for taking commercial risk

• Balance delivery of social objectives with maintaining financial strength

THANK YOU