Firm insists decision was not influenced by new private equity owners

Cala Homes has opened redundancy consultations for nearly half of the technical drawing department in its English headquarters in Buckinghamshire in order to focus on its standardised range.

Housing Today understands that five members of a dozen-strong team working in the Bourne End office were told on 26 November that they would be made redundant.

cala

The department’s work is divided between those working on the housebuilder’s standardised range and those working on bespoke designs, with cuts set to fall on staff involved with the latter.

One staff member at the housebuilder told Housing Today that notice of the planned changes to their department had been “incredibly short” and that the decision had “come from top down”.

“To be honest we are baffled. Our work all comes from regional offices so it’s all internal to the group,” they said.

“But it was designed financially to be self-supporting. We have our own targets to meet that meets our overheads”.

According to this individual, the design team had been subject to a hiring freeze for a while, which staff had assumed was linked to Cala’s recent sale 

US private equity firm Sixth Street and former owner Patron Capital bought the firm for £1.35bn from Legal and General in September.

In a statement to Housing Today, Cala confirmed that some roles in its English head office were set to go.

“We have recently proposed some changes to our design team structure, which may impact a small number of roles in our England head office,” said a spokesperson.

“This is part of our strategic plan to concentrate on our core homes. We are committed to supporting those affected through the consultation process.”  

The spokesperson insisted that the decision was not influenced by Cala’s new owners.

“We have been told explicitly that it is not anything to do with that, but the timing is very close,” said one staff member who spoke to Housing Today.

“To be given only a two week period to come to terms with this does feel like a kick. Now I wonder how much they had already been thinking about closing it”.

In March, Cala released its annual report which showed that pre-tax profit had slipped from £169m to £112m last year on turnover down 7% to £1.3bn.

The business completed 2,917 homes in the year, a 3.6% decline on the 3,027 posted in 2022.