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Clarion boosts surplus to £306m

The UK’s largest housing association has boosted its operating surplus by 6%, from £289m to £306m, for the financial year 2017/18.

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Picture: Getty
Picture: Getty
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The UK’s largest housing association has boosted its operating surplus to more than £300m #ukhousing

Clarion built 1,263 new homes in the last financial year #ukhousing

Clarion, whose new chief executive Ruth Cooke started in the job just over two weeks ago, will not issue its annual report until July, but updated the stock market today on some of its headline figures for the year ended 31 March 2018.

As well as an increased surplus, operating costs were down from £495m in the financial year 2016/17 to £478m.

The association, formed from the merger of Affinity Sutton and Circle Housing in 2016 to form a 125,000-home organisation, said its pre-tax net surplus was slightly lower than the previous year, falling from £176m to £162m.


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The value of Clarion’s housing fixed assets rose from £6.5bn to £6.77bn, thanks to the association investing in new development. It partly funded this by an increase in its drawn debt levels, which rose from £3.28bn to £3.54bn.

According to the update, Clarion built 1,263 homes in the financial year and started 1,428, investing £427m in the year – a significant increase from the £196m spent in the previous year.

Fundraising capacity at Clarion expanded significantly towards the end of 2017 as it launched a £3bn debt platform to raise funds from the bond market. It issued its first £250m bond from this platform last week.

Shortly after that bond was announced, the association announced that Mark Washer, its long-standing chief financial officer, will leave in the summer to take over as chief executive at 56,000-home Sovereign.

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