61,000-home association recruits former Family Mosaic and TfL finance director Ken Youngman
Sovereign has hired Ken Youngman as its interim chief financial officer (CFO) after saying it expects to need extra financing this year.
The 61,000-home housing association yesterday announced the appointment of Youngman following the resignation of current CFO Tracey Barnes for unspecified “personal reasons” last month.
Youngman, who served as finance director of Family Mosaic for 16 years before its merger with Peabody in 2018, joined Sovereign yesterday. He will initially work through a handover period before taking over as interim CFO on 19 November.
He joins Sovereign from Transport for London, where he served as finance director responsible for commercial development. At TfL he set up a growth strategy including developing 20,000 homes on TfL land. He was also a former chair of the G15 finance director’s group and a member of the finance policy advisory group at the National Housing Federation.
In a trading update in August Sovereign said it expected to need extra financing in 2022/23 in order “to fund development spend and maintain liquidity” in line with its financial “golden rules”.
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It added that it had breached one of its financial rules – to keep its operating margin above 30% – due to “the combination of continued cost pressures the business is experiencing across our property services and increased spend in our transformation programme which will support the long-term performance of the business”.
The group reported a 25% decrease in completions in the first quarter of the 2022/23 financial year. It did however report a slight increase in turnover and surplus.
Mark Washer, chief executive of Sovereign, said Youngman had a made a ‘huge impact’ at Family Mosaic while his work at TfL stood out “as an example of delivering long-term business plans”
He added: “At a time when the economic backdrop is extremely challenging, Sovereign is fortunate to have an interim CFO who will hold course to deliver our corporate plan and continue to maintain strong finances.”
Last year Sovereign built 1,196 new homes.
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