No recommendation
No news or research item is a personal recommendation to deal. Hargreaves Lansdown may not share ShareCast's (powered by Digital Look) views.
(Sharecast News) - Embattled housebuilder Vistry warned on Thursday that market conditions remained tough, as it got a sweeping restructuring underway.
Updating on trading for the period from 1 July to date, Vistry said open market conditions remained "difficult", including affordability constraints, cautious consumer sentiment and wider macroeconomic uncertainty.
But it said "decisive action" was being taken during the period to overhaul the business, including reducing the headcount and restructuring operating regions from 25 to 12. It did not detail how many jobs had been cut to date, but confirmed that the management teams for 12 regions had been established, with the new structure due to be in place and operational from January,
It also confirmed a new chief financial officer - Helen Miles - had been recruited, and that the land bank was being reshaped with a number of transactions set to complete before the year end.
Average net debt was expected to be around £800m in the second half. "The group remains on a clear pathway to sustainably reduce its leverage and expects the year end net debt position to be within the range of analyst expectations," Vistry noted. It also flagged "good progress" in delivering £50m of savings in the 2027 full year.
Vistry - formerly called Bovis - has been rocked by cash flow difficulties, soaring debt and the wider slowdown in the housing market, all of which have weighed on the share price.
Chief executive Adam Daniels was appointed in April and immediately launched a review of the business.
In a statement on Thursday, he said: "Since announcing the conclusions of the review in September, we have continued to take decisive action to create smaller, more focused and disciplined business. Our immediate priorities remain generating cash, lowering financial leverage, improving operational control and reducing complexity, while maintaining tight commercial discipline."
He called the job cuts "difficult but necessary" and noted that while the business was seeing benefits from commercial initiatives, "current trading continues to reflect a challenging open market backdrop and a slow but gradual build up in partner funded transaction activity".
As at 0825 GMT, the stock was down 1% at 287.2p.
See latest RNS on Sharecast