Sarah Smith set to retire as Southern Housing’s CFO

She started her career at BDO before moving to KPMG to provide audit, mergers and acquisitions and financial planning services to the housing association sector.

 
Ms Smith sits on the Institute of Chartered Accountants in England and Wales’ social housing sub-committee and the National Housing Federation’s (NHF) finance and policy advisory group. She was chair of the G15 finance directors’ group between 2017 to 2019 and vice-chair of the NHF’s Housing Statement of Recommended Practice (SORP) working party until 2020.

Ms Smith is a board member and member of the audit risk committee of Dolphin Living and a board member and chair of the audit committee of Reall Limited, an investor in affordable housing in urban Africa and Asia.

She is also a member of the Sustainability for Housing board.

Paul Hackett, chief executive of Southern Housing, said: “Sarah has been a valued colleague at Southern Housing and its predecessor organisations since joining in 2009.

“I would like to take this opportunity to thank her, on behalf of the board and colleagues across Southern Housing, for her commitment and contribution during her time here.

“As well as continuing with non-executive roles with housing charities, Sarah will finally have more time to pursue other passions. We wish her all the very best for the future.”

Ms Smith said: “I have had 16 tremendous years at Southern Housing, but I am very excited to be planning my future retirement. 

“I wish Paul and the rest of Southern Housing all the best for the future. I am very proud of what we have achieved over the last 16 years. The business is performing very well and has the right strategy in place to be able to navigate through the tough economic and operating environment.”

In October, Southern Housing issued a £250m 30-year bond in its first issuance since the group was formed.

According to its financial results, in 2023-24 the housing association posted a loss before tax of £28m, compared with a surplus of £80m in the previous year. This drop was partly attributed to lower sales income and fair value investment property adverse movements of £32m.

Southern Housing has an A3 stable credit rating with Moody’s and an A negative rating with Fitch Ratings.

In August, the Regulator of Social Housing gave the landlord the grades of G1/V2/C1 after upgrading the landlord’s governance rating.