* CEO Jenkinson announces departure after a year in charge
* Annual profit dips to 1.04 bln pounds
* Builder needs to "continue evolution" after complaints
* Shares fall more than 6%
(Adds details on results, CEO, background)
By Samantha Machado
Feb 27 (Reuters) - Persimmon CEO David Jenkinson announced
plans to step down on Thursday just a year after he was
appointed to rebuild the reputation of Britain's second-biggest
housebuilder following criticism of poor construction and big
payouts to executives.
Shares in the company fell as much as 6.4% after it said
Jenkinson would leave in due course. It also reported a 4.6%
fall in 2019 pretax profit to 1.04 billion pounds ($1.35
billion), in line with expectations.
It sold 15,855 new homes in 2019, compared with 16,449 in
2018, when its use of government "Help to Buy" subsidies was
marred by customer complaints over the quality of the houses and
a $100 million bonus paid to previous CEO Jeff Fairburn.
Fairburn resigned in late 2018 and Persimmon sought
to steady the ship by ordering an external review and appointing
long-term company insider Jenkinson last February.
That review, published in December, was heavily critical of
Persimmon's business practices, prompting the company to commit
to improvements.
Chairman Roger Devlin said Jenkinson had "played a critical
role in the development of a new Persimmon" and it would seek a
replacement who "continued the evolution of the business".
Credit Suisse described Jenkinson's departure as "somewhat
surprising."
Persimmon shares, which had risen around 20% this year, were
down 4.7% to 2,932 pence at 1040 GMT, in a weak UK stock market.
Separately, Vistry Group, formerly known as Bovis
Homes Group, beat market estimates with a record rise in annual
profit as it sold more homes and said it had seen increased
levels of consumer demand in the new year.
Vistry, which recently bought fellow builder Galliford Try's
residential arm, said pretax profit rose 12% to 188.2
million pounds.
Persimmon has said delays in rolling out homes, while it
carries out additional quality checks, have dented profits.
"We were ... engaged on a broad range of customer service
and quality improvement initiatives throughout the year,"
Jenkinson said. "We are confident these initiatives will add to
our momentum this year."
($1 = 0.7696 pounds)
(Reporting by Samantha Machado and Noor Zainab Hussain in
Bengaluru; Editing by Sriraj Kalluvila and Mark Potter)