Housebuilder wants a fifth of its home sales to be delivered from partnership sites
The chief executive of MJ Gleeson has stressed that its core business will continue to be open market sales even as it moves to increase its work in partnerships.
Speaking to Housing Today after the publication of its annual results last week, Graham Prothero said progress in partnership work could “accelerate” its plans to build 3,000 homes a year.
Gleeson Homes completed the sale of 1,772 in the year to 30 June 2024.
Prothero stressed that while partnerships work was “very sensible risk diversification for us” which will “facilitate our growth because it will give us access to larger sites”, he did not see it as a replacement for open market sales even in the long term.
“We’re not trying to be Vistry, we’re not going to pivot the business - our core business remains open market sales and that is what will drive our growth and the tripling of profit we have talked about,” he said.
Gleeson began exploring partnerships in July 2023 and announced their first deals in June and August.
The firm’s results last week, which came after a major restructure, showed turnover had edged up 5% to £345m but pre-tax profit slipped 21% to £25m.
“Honestly, I wasn’t very pleased in June, but I’ve watched what everybody else has come out with and I think we have done ok,” said Prothero.
“It was a more challenging year than any of us had really hoped for”.
>>See also: Top 50 Housebuilders 2023
Prothero said Gleeson’s land business was likely to be “second-half weighted” this year, due to a harsh election year planning environment.
“What that has done is created a bit of a hiatus, a bit of a gap in our goodies to put in the shop window,” he said.
Addressing the new Labour government, Prothero said the “jury is out” but that “everything they have said encourages me”.
He praised early moves on planning reform, grey belt and apprenticeships but said the “one thing I haven’t heard from them on is nutrient neutrality”, noting that Gleeson had around 1,000 plots held up by nutrient restrictions.
No comments yet