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Barratt Developments PLC on Wednesday said it performed strongly in the first half of its financial year, though it warned that the UK housing market has suffered a slowdown.
In the six months to December 31, total home completions, including joint ventures, rose annually to 8,626 from 8,067.
Barratt’s sales rate weakened, however, to 0.44 net private reservations per active outlet per week from 0.79 a year earlier.
The total forward order book is worth £2.54 billion, down from £3.79 billion a year prior.
Barratt added: ‘Assuming net reservation rates increase in line with normal spring trading patterns to around 0.50 homes per active outlet per week, we will remain on track to deliver consensus total home completions of 17,475.’
The company warned that home completions will be below consensus and in the range of 16,000 to 16,500 should there not be a spring housing market recovery.
‘We have taken a number of actions to respond to current market conditions, including significantly reducing land approvals, pausing recruitment of new employees and introducing further controls for new site openings to manage our working capital deployment,’ Barratt said.
Looking ahead, Barratt warned the uncertainty of outlook for the second half of financial 2023 with homebuyer confidence and the availability and competitive pricing of mortgages critical to the health of the UK housing market in the coming months.
In addition, Barratt named Caroline Silver as its next chair, succeeding John Allan on September 6. Alan will leave the board, having served for nine years. Silver joins the board as a non-executive director from June 1.
Silver currently is chair of consumer goods firm PZ Cussons PLC but will step down on March 31. She also is a non-executive director of grocer Tesco PLC. As an executive, Silver was an investment banker, working at Morgan Stanley and Merrill Lynch.
Barratt shares were down 1.1% at 418.80 pence each on Wednesday morning in London.
By Xindi Wei, Alliance News reporter
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