LiveWest in ‘strong position’ to deal with COVID-19 after reporting slight increase in surplus

The 37,000-home association recorded a post-tax surplus of £59m for the year to March 2020, up from £56m the year before.

The association’s turnover also rose from £233m to £248m in the year and operating costs increased from £167m to £179m.

Published amid the ongoing pandemic, the association said it is in a “strong financial position to respond to the challenges of the virus”.

In a stock market note it said: “We are performing stress-tests on our business plan to assess the impact the many challenges the pandemic will bring, including slow down in sales, an increase in rent arrears and wider economic impacts.”

LiveWest – which recently offloaded 613 homes to Radian Group – completed 1,158 affordable units over the year, compared with 900 in 2019. It has a contracted pipeline of 2,438 affordable homes.

However, the group reported small falls across a number of financial indicators including its operating margin on social housing lettings, which fell from 33% in 2019 to 32% in 2020.

Its gross profit margin on shared ownership sales also dropped from 28% to 25% and profit margins on open market sales fell from 23% to 19%.

The landlord’s percentage of turnover coming from sales rose slightly from 22% in 2019 to 24% in 2020.