(Alliance News) - Vistry Group PLC on Thursday upgraded its 2024 forecast for home completions and predicted an increase in annual profit, following a strong start to 2024.
The Kings Hill, England-based housebuilder said it has secured new land and development opportunities totalling 6,037 new homes across 19 developments in the year to date.
Strong demand from registered providers for affordable homes has continued, Vistry said, and the company is working closely with RPs to "ensure Vistry remains their partner of choice for their new housing investment".
Vistry's open market sales rates have improved since the start of the year, and pricing across partner funded sales has "remained resilient", the company said.
Total sales rate - the average number of sales per week per site - has been 0.96 in 2024 so far, rising to 1.23 over the past 8 weeks. This compares to 0.87 in the first four months of 2023.
Vistry said it is on track to deliver more than 18,000 home completions in the full year, an increase of more than 10% from 16,118 in 2023 and ahead of its previous expectation of 17,500.
The upgraded forecast is underpinned by Vistry's strong forward sales position, up 10% on-year to GBP4.9 billion as at May 15 from GBP4.5 billion. Of this, GBP2.1 billion is scheduled for delivery this year, Vistry said.
The company also expects to benefit from lower building material costs in 2024, as a result of Vistry's increased engagement with its supply chain in 2023.
"Our high level of visibility on forward sales and build programme enables us to work closely with our subcontractors to secure beneficial terms", the company added.
Chief Executive Officer Greg Fitzgerald said: "The group has had a good start to the year with our unique partnerships model clearly demonstrating its market resilience. Working closely with our partners, we are seeing good demand in the partner funded market and accompanied by an improving trend for our open market sales, are on track to deliver more than 10% growth in completions in FY24, with half year and full year profit expected to be ahead of last year."
In 2023, Vistry reported GBP304.8 million in pretax profit on GBP4.04 billion revenue.
The company said it remains committed to returning GBP1 billion of capital to its shareholders over the next three years.
So far, Vistry has repurchased GBP18 million worth of shares as part of its latest GBP100 million buyback programme, which started in April.
Vistry shares were up 0.5% at 1,297.50 pence each in London on Thursday morning.
By Hugh Cameron, Alliance News reporter
Comments and questions to newsroom@alliancenews.com
Copyright 2024 Alliance News Ltd. All Rights Reserved.
Vistry Grp (VTY)