CM Company News

Anchor Trust reported a marginal drop in revenues from £267.5m (including £3.7m from discontinued operations) to £264.9m for the year ended 31 March 2013. Retirement housing contributed £128.6m (2012: £124.3m) towards this figure and care homes £119.2m (2012: £117.4m). A further £5.4m was made from providing extra-care services (2012: £5.6m). Following costs of £246.7m (2012: £242.1m), the charitable provider recorded an operating surplus of £18.1m (2012: £25.5m). After taking into account a gain of £8.2m on the disposal of fixed assets (£3.7m) and £4.5m net finance costs (2012: £7.7m), a surplus of £21.8m was recorded (2012: £22.2m). During the report period, Anchor sold 13 properties at Denham Garden Village and a further seven at its The Laureates development, and has since said that all but a few’ properties have been purchased.

Supported living services accounted for the vast majority of incoming resources achieved by charity Alternative Futures Group for the year ended 31 March 2013. The portfolio of 258 schemes supporting 678 people achieved revenues of £42.5m (2012: £44m), with its nine independent hospitals contributing £8.6m and its two adult care homes arm earning £2.4m, £1m more than 2012. The total figure of £55.1m, however, fell marginally from the previous year’s £55.7m.

Despite a 5% fall in occupancy levels, revenues at care home provider Meridian Healthcare (Holdings) only experienced a marginal drop to £32.5m in the year ended 31 March 2013, from £32.8m in 2012. After a £1m reduction in administrative expenses, however, Meridian recorded an operating profit of £7.6m, the same figure as the previous year. Following £1m in net finance charges and a £248,000 profit on the sale of investments, the provider actually came out ahead with a pre-tax profit of £6.8m (2012: £6.6m).

Springfield Home Care Services, a provider of domiciliary care, reported a fall in profit for the year ending 31 March 2013 despite an increase in turnover.

High-end extra care village provider LifeCare Residences reported revenues of £14.4m for the year ended 31 March 2013, an increase of 39% on the previous year’s £10.4m. The vast majority of this income came from property leases (£11.9m) with the remainder generated through care services.

AIM listed health and community care property company Ashley House, which has diversified from GP and community health premises into extra care developments in recent years, said it was building momentum in new business areas despite an overall loss before taxation of £0.8m (2012: £0.5m) for the six months ended 31 October 2013.

Financial services group Legal & General has entered the care home property sector buying 13 facilities from Prestbury Investments for just over £70m.

Growth in the care home sector is likely to remain at the same pace as 2013, with transactional activity concentrated at the top and bottom ends of the market, forecast Christie + Co, maintaining an acquisitive environment where cash is king and quality is key.

Care home property developer McCarthy & Stone reported increased losses for the year ending 31 August 2013 despite growing its turnover from £289.2m to £321m. Administrative expenses grew to £51.5m (2012: £36m) and cost of sales hit £291.6m (2012: £232.1m). After other income was taken into account McCarthy & Stone posted an operating profit of £7.9m (2012: £22.8).

Mears believes it will be one step ahead of the competition as more local authorities look to pay providers by results, following the operators’ joint venture with Wiltshire county council. Mears described the move away from the time and task model to outcome-based commissioning in its pre-trading update as its most important milestone since entering into care and an important development in the domiciliary market in the UK’.