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Three-way merger talks to create 60,000-home housing association end
Discussions over a potential three-way merger to create a new 60,000-home landlord to cover central and East England have ended.
Talks between BPHA, Flagship Homes and Futures Housing Group began in April, but have now come to an end. The associations stated “changing economic conditions over the past six months” as the reason.
The 60,000-home landlord would have been the biggest social housing provider across the East and central England.
When discussions first began, the partners had hoped that combining resources would “boost social housing provision and services in the region”.
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However, in a joint statement published today, the landlords said the changing economic conditions have undermined the potential of the enlarged association to achieve the goals set out when talks began.
The statement said: “As three individually strong organisations, we set ourselves some ambitious goals for a potential new organisation.
“Given the change in economic circumstances over the past six months, achieving these aims is no longer feasible and therefore we have agreed to end the talks.”
Flagship was the largest partner of the three, owning and managing 32,000 homes mainly in the East of England.
Bedford-based BPHA owns and manages more than 19,500 homes, with its stock mainly situated in the arc around Cambridge, Oxford and Bedfordshire.
Futures Housing Group was the smallest partner; owning and managing more than 10,000 homes from Derbyshire in the East Midlands down to Daventry.
The statement added that each of the associations is well placed to continue serving their customers effectively and now look forward to supporting each other in the normal course of business.
This is the second major merger talk to break down in the past week. Orbit and Swan announced they would be ending plans to merge after “a lengthy due diligence process”.
Within hours of the news of Orbit and Swan’s discussions ending, Swan revealed it had started discussions with Sanctuary to create a new 117,000-home landlord.
There has been an uptick in merger activity following the coronavirus pandemic, with a number of large providers looking to combine resources and balance sheets.
Earlier this year, Peabody and Catalyst completed a merger to create a new 104,000-home landlord. While on Monday, the boards of Optivo and Southern Housing Group approved the merger between the two G15 landlords.
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