Better to be a tortoise than a hare?
Housing Associations (HAs) often sell themselves short. Judged by institutional investors (UK and European pension funds and life companies) HAs are more often than not viewed today as a better credit risk than the banks that have provided a significant proportion of their debt.
That conclusion is underlined by a recent publication from the Tenant Services Authority (The Impact of the Credit Crunch on Housing Associations) which compares a number of financial metrics for Housing Associations measured against property companies and a broad range of large PLC debt issuers.
The comparisons are perhaps a little like the fable of the tortoise and the hare, with HAs contributing slow, steady returns to investors, but in today’s post credit crunch world, boring is good! Institutional investors should be encouraged to read this publication.
You can download the pdf report by clicking on: The Impact of the Credit Crunch – Report
Or you can get it from the TSA site.
Photo: thanks to Lord Trilink on flickr.com