Investment in new homes up 76% at Thirteen as it delivers highest-ever number of properties

“EBITDA MRI interest cover has shown a planned reduction over recent years as we increase investment in our properties whilst retaining significant headroom to our golden rule and continuing to show positive performance against our peers,” Thirteen said.

It expects the margin to drop further as it increases investment in its homes and ramps up retrofit work. During 2023-24, its investment in existing homes grew by £20.9m to £109.2m.

Thirteen noted that all its lenders had now approved a revised interest cover calculation to remove deductions for capitalised major repairs.

This “provides capacity and flexibility to achieve zero-carbon ambitions”, it said.

Thirteen said it had agreed a new financial measure for interest payable on an EBITDA MRI basis at a threshold of 125%, which “releases significant capacity against the previous golden rule of 165%”.

The 36,000-home landlord also worked to renew and extend its revolving credit facilities as well as to secure extra fixed-rate funding for new homes, with £100m of funding secured.

Overall, Thirteen reported bolstered turnover of £207.3m, compared to £198m the previous year. It also increased its surplus by 21% to £29m.

Its operating margin improved by 2.8 percentage points to 20.8%. It said this was slightly below target as a result of high demand for repairs.

The landlord saw 15,876 additional repairs carried out year on year, and said it had fallen short of its goal for non-emergency repairs, achieving 64% against a 90% target.

“We acknowledge that we have not always met some customers’ expectations, especially regarding our goal of completing non-emergency repairs,” Thirteen said.

Jane Castor, chief finance officer at Thirteen, said: “We’ve achieved a healthy 18.9% increase in net surplus and, whilst our interest cover has consciously reduced from the increased investment, we maintain the financial strength that underpins our long-term future.”

“We are very pleased with the progress we have made with our funding strategy during 2023-24,” she added. “This, together with our financial strength, gives us a strong foundation to raise additional funding and accelerate our investment in improving and building homes even further.”

Last December, Thirteen took advantage of new shorter loan terms and agreed a 10-year loan through the Affordable Homes Guarantee Scheme.