A NEW FUTURE

OUR VISION

The vision is to create a new Housing Group with c45000 homes with c120,000 customers across the Midlands and Central England. It will be one of the largest Registered Providers of affordable housing in the Midlands, and one of the top ten providers nationally employing around 1200 people. Subject to appropriate consultation, the new Housing Group will come into effect 1 October 2018.

WHO ARE WATERLOO HOUSING GROUP?

Waterloo Housing Group (Waterloo) arebased in Solihull. They have c26,000 homes across Central England, with large concentrations of housing stock in the West Midlands, Leicestershire, Derbyshire and Lincolnshire.

They are high performing and financially strong with a G1 V1 rating and, like us, they are working to deliver more services digitally.

Waterloo has been involved in a series of mergers most recently Acclaim Housing Group in 2016. They have a number of subsidiaries that they are working to amalgamate, with Waterloo Housing Group Limited becoming the single main charitable asset-owning entity.

Waterloo are an established development partner who last year delivered in excess of 1,000 homes. They received the largest grant in the country in the HCA’s 2015-2018 Affordable Homes Programme (£51.9 million) and have been awarded £43.8 million under the 2016-21 programme to deliver circa 1400 Homes.

WHO ARE FORTIS LIVING?

Fortis Living is a not-for-profit housing provider based in Worcestershire, with c16,000 homes primarily across Worcestershire, Herefordshire, Gloucestershire and Warwickshire.

Fortis has been involved in two mergers; to establish Festival Housing in 2002 and the merger of Festival and WCH in 2014 to create Fortis Living.

Fortis’ current Vision is Better Homes, Better Lives. The supporting Mission is Building a Better Future by Investing in Homes, People and Communities.

Fortis’ approach is based on having a strong financial base through generating operational efficiencies, which enables it to develop more new homes, transform the way it delivers customer services and growth for its property care business through partnerships.

Fortis has consistently achieved the highest rating from the Homes and Communities Agency regarding its governance and financial viability and works closely with their customers and stakeholders to understand and respond to local needs and to help create successful and resilient local communities. Fortis Living also provide homes and services for those needing extra support, including supported, sheltered and extracare.

Fortis has achieved its objective to deliver over 500 homes a year over the last 3 years and was ranked 22nd in 2016/17 for the delivery of affordable homes. There is also a strong development pipeline and Fortis build a range of tenures from affordable rent to market sale.

In addition to its general needs properties, Fortis also has a large number of schemes for older people including an Extra Care Village in Hereford, with another Extra Care Village developed in Malvern and specialist housing for younger people, including a Foyer in Malvern

WHAT ARE THE BENEFITS OF A MERGER?

We are both strong, high-performing housing businesses with similar backgrounds, a strong social purpose and shared vision and culture. We also overlap in many of the areas we work in.

The key benefits to merging are:

MORE NEW HOMES

Our combined financial strength means we will be able to deliver around 2000 new affordable homes each year across a range of tenures within 5 years. That’s 500 more homes than we could achieve separately and a huge programme of 18,000 new homes over the first 10 years.

BETTER CUSTOMER SERVICE

Our combined investment in digital services will improve customer experience and provide more services through the website and other digital channels. This work is already underway as part of our 2017-2022 strategy.Our shared experiences will help us to deliver improved customer engagement and customer insight.

BETTER MAINTENANCE SERVICES

The new Housing Group would re-invest at least £50m per year into existing stock. This will give significant opportunities to deliver more services in-house and to grow our Property Care business.

STRONGER, MORE EFFICIENT ANDINFLUENTIAL BUSINESS

The new Housing Group would have a turnover of £230m turnover, asset value of £21bn, £50m cash surpluses and save over £12million by year 5. Our significant combined financial strength would help us to respond to future strategic, environmental, financial and operating risks.

It will also allow us to have greater influence for our customers and communities locally, regionally and nationally. We would be a key delivery partner to local authority partners across the Midlands. we also believe there is potential to make savings of £12 million by Year 5, that’s £10 million over the first 10 years. The savings will be invested in new homes and services.

AN EMPLOYER OF CHOICE

Our combined resources will bring more opportunities for the 1200 employees. Better career opportunities, comprehensive training and development programme (including more apprenticeships) will help us to retain our best peopleand attract the best talent.

MORE ABOUT MAINTENANCE SERVICES

The new partnership will be re-investing at least £50m per year into its existing stock and, as a result, will be able to enhance its approach to strategic asset management across the combined stock. This volume of expenditure provides significant opportunities to deliver more services from within the partnership and to broaden the role of an in-house contractor.

Fortis Property Care (FPC) delivers responsive and planned maintenance services to all of Fortis’ housing stock. FPC also provide a full range of maintenance services to other housing providers including Rooftop though a VAT efficient Cost Sharing Vehicle (CSV) and through a standard contractual arrangement for West Mercia’s Homes Worcestershire housing stock.

FPC currently has a turnover of c£24m, 250 highly trained and mobile trades’ operatives including 15 Apprentices. FPC’s current Business Plan aims to achieve a £30m turnover by 2020 through additional partners through its CSV.

Waterloo currently provide responsive maintenance services to its customers through 4 in-house direct labour organisations including 2 substantial operations in Derbyshire and Lincolnshire which provides services to approximately 50% of its housing stock, with maintenance work to the remainder of its housing stock delivered through a number of external contractors.

The partnership provides the opportunity to expand its Property Care business to carry out all the responsive and planned maintenance works in-house increasing turnover to £50m and generating £2m of VAT and efficiency savings by year 5, with the potential to generate other efficiencies through combined procurement and other VFM activity.

As a commercial subsidiary, the partnership’s in-house contractor will also be able to consider plans to expand into private sector work and other commercial opportunities, such as building new homes on behalf of the partnership.

HOW WILL THE NEW HOUSING GROUP OPERATE?

A new Group Structure will be created with a new parent company. Fortis Living and Waterloo Housing will remain as separate organisations and sit alongside a new Property Care business, Waterloo Homes (the brand used for marketing shared ownership properties for sale) and a separate VAT efficient development company.

HOW WILL THE GOVERNANCE AND LEADERSHIP TEAM WORK?

There is a common board overseeing the work of the new Housing Group. Itis made up of 5 representatives from the current Fortis Living Board and 5 from the current Waterloo Board.

There is a single Group Executive Team across the Housing Group.

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