New association will have stock of 11,000 – and managers promise no redundancies

Airways Housing Group and Apex Housing Group are to combine in one of the sector’s biggest mergers after receiving a green light from the Housing Corporation.

Plans for the deal were revealed by Housing Today last summer (HT 11 June 2004) and this week it was given the go-ahead by the corporation. The merger will be formally completed on Tuesday.

The newly created association will be known as the A2 Housing Group and will have a combined stock of more than 11,000 homes. It plans to increase its stock 50% to 16,500 by 2010 and also aims to become one of the 20 biggest developing associations.

Only the 2003 merger of Downland Housing Group with Affinity Homes Group was larger. This created an association with about 30,000 properties.

Apex brings with it its recent Housing Corporation partnering status. Collectively, A2 will have an immediate borrowing facility in excess of £400m.

The merged associations’ catchment area will stretch from Oxfordshire to south-west London and from Surrey to Buckinghamshire. Development proposals, yet to be announced, would also give it a significant presence throughout central and southern England.

John Knevett, A2’s deputy chief executive who was formerly chief executive of Airways, said there would not be any redundancies arising from the merger.

He said: “Both organisations have a strong reputation for their culture of performance and customer focus. To continue providing this high quality service, we felt it was important to retain the teams of people who had helped us to attain these levels of achievement.

“Every permanent member of staff has been offered a role in the new organisation and efficiencies will come through economies of scale and buying power,” Knevett said.

Alan Walker, chief executive of A2 and formerly chief executive of Apex, said: “With two high profile registered social landlords that have already demonstrated particular success throughout the last few years, we are very excited in blending two sets of unique and specialised strengths in the creation of A2.

“As a new and substantial regional housing provider, we look forward to the future in the delivery of ‘housing for all’.”

Source

Housing Today

Postscript

Beth Johnson Housing Group and Sanctuary Association are also considering a merger that would give them a combined total of more than 10,000 homes. The deal has yet be approved by the associations’ boards but if it goes ahead, Beth Johnson, which manages about 4400 homes in Staffordshire, Shropshire and South Cheshire, would run Sanctuary's Midlands stock of 6000 homes.