Barratt Redrow plc

Okay, we'll make a start. Good morning, everyone, and welcome. It's really good to be here in person for the first time in 30 months. The only downside is I'm not doing it in my pajamas, which is how I've done it for the last two and a half years. So I'm going to start off with an overview of our performance, revisit our medium-term targets, and also look at our progress in the year. Stephen will then take you through our operational performance, and Mike will cover our financial performance in FY22. And I will then come back to look at industry fundamentals, sustainability, and finally to look at current trading and outlook. So if we move to slide three, as we've said before, given the strength of the sales market, Our results have really been determined by our ability to build performance that has delivered total home completions up nearly 4% and back at pre-pandemic levels. Most importantly, we've delivered those volumes whilst maintaining

customer service and also sustainability.

Our operational and financial performance reflects the determination and the excellence of both our teams and also our supply chain partners. So alongside strong consumer demand, our very disciplined management of both build and sales activities combine to deliver a further expansion in our adjusted gross and operating margins. coupled with a strong control of capital employed resulted in a further improvement on Rocky to 30%, clearly well above our medium term target. I'm also very pleased to announce the final ordinary dividend, which results in a dividend for the year of 36.9 pence, with dividend cover of 2.25 times the and some 25% ahead of last year's dividend. And finally, as we announced, the board has approved plans to return additional capital through a share buyback programme. We intend to return 200 million, which will start with an initial tranche of 50 million to be completed no later than the 31st of December 2022. So turning now to slide four, which details our progress in the year and our areas of focus for FY23. So after a very strong performance in FY22, our focus in FY23 is going to centre on managing the end of the Help to Buy programme, including what is a more uncertain market. But we are aided by a very strong forward order book position, and also our planned sales outlet growth. Based on current market conditions, we're looking to deliver between 18,400 and 18,800 total home completions in FY23. This is in line with our medium-term target to grow total completions by between 3% and 5%. Looking to the medium term, with the opening of two new divisions and our additional land sourcing opportunities and planning capabilities with the Gladman acquisition, we now have in place the infrastructure and capacity to allow us to deliver up to 21,500 completions. In FY22, our adjusted gross margin improved by 160 basis points to 24.8% and exceeded our minimum 23% gross margin land acquisition hurdle for a second year. In FY23, our focus will be on balancing our reservations and our order book position to maximise sales price opportunities whilst ensuring we work hard to limit the impact of ongoing build cost inflation. We also believe we can deliver further build output growth in FY23. We are really delighted that our discipline, coupled with a positive market backdrop, unlocked a 220 basis point improvement in Rockhead. In FY23, we're going to strike a careful balance on land and working capital investment, and we will see how trading evolves over the coming months. On land, we're now looking to approve on a net replacement basis relative to completions. and we will invest in working capital to support our active site growth and product availability, whilst ensuring that we continue to drive profitability to deliver our minimum 25% return on capital employed target. Thank you, and I'll now hand over to Stephen, who will take you through the operational performance.

Thank you David. Good morning everyone and it's great to see so many of you here in person. Today I'll take you through the usual operational updates and then address our build performance, quality, customer service and our land position as well as provide an update on the Gladman acquisition. Our sales performance is detailed here on slide 6. We delivered an excellent sales rate for the year at 0.81, 3.8% ahead of FY21 with sales showing strength throughout the year. Total average sales outlets were 3.2% lower at 332, which reflected two factors. First was the strength of the sales throughout the year, with the number of sites trading through available homes more rapidly than anticipated. And second, we experienced some planning delays on several sites. Although I'm pleased to report, outlets did recover and we were operating from 352 active sites at the end of June. Looking forward, with new sites in the pipeline, we expect total average sales outlets will be around 3% higher in FY23. Turning now to completions on slide 7. we delivered 17,908 total completions and returned to the more normal seasonal phasing of completions with a 45%-55% split between first and second halves. FY23 should see a similar phasing, although this will clearly be dependent on how the sales market develops in the coming months. Our private ASP improved by 4.7%. but we estimate underlying house price inflation for our homes was around 7.4%, using our site, house type and square footage comparisons. The differential reflects a 3.5% reduction in the average size of the private homes completed in FY22, with a lower proportion of four- and five-bed home completions, and the balance is accounted for by changes in geographic mix. Our house price inflation estimate was also remarkably uniform across the UK. The affordable average selling price increase of 8.8% reflected a larger proportion of completions from our outer London operations. The affordable ASP was £159,000 in the year and just over £161,000 in the second half which is a good guide for FY23. Now a look at the profile of our home buyers on slide 8. The standout is the growth in traditional private sales from 34% to 51% of completions. This reflected both the tapering of the help-to-buy scheme, where the share has declined from 38% to 19%, as well as the significant improvement in mortgage availability which has supported our private completions. The Help to Buy scheme formally closes in March 2023, however reservations must be made by 31st October this year. We are well positioned for the end of Help to Buy and have been planning for the transition since 2017. Through careful site selection to ensure our sites are in locations where affordability is less of an issue without access to help to buy. Design to make sure site plotting and house type selection are flexible, enabling us to react to changes in customer demand and affordability. And increased investment in training for our sales teams. along with marketing support to ensure our sales advisors are fully equipped to help prospective buyers identify the right home in the context of mortgage availability and qualification and we have deposit unlock which is an industry-led five percent deposit scheme for first-time buyers in place across all our divisions to help support buyers at higher loan to value requirements and finally I would highlight that since 1st July, help to buy activity has declined further and year to date has accounted for 12% of private reservations. Now turning to slide 9. I want to cover off our build performance, customer service and build quality. On build, our teams have done a fantastic job in FY22. We built an average of 352 equivalent homes each week, 13.2% ahead of FY21 and almost back to the weekly output in FY19 when the group was building on more sites. And this is a testament to the determination, flexibility and dedication of our site-based employees and subcontractors. There are, though, four additional factors that have helped drive this performance. The first relates to attracting and retaining the 20,000 tradespeople who are typically on our sites each day. Here we focus on ensuring our sites are well organised, safe and efficient workplaces, attractive for our employees and tradespeople. The second relates to build efficiency. Our house sites are designed to make our homes easier to build, helping our tradespeople maximise their productivity and earnings. 93% of our active sites are now operating with these house type ranges. The third relates to the adoption of MMC. Here we increased use of timber frame, which grew from 17.4% to almost 21% of completions in FY22. This was an important ingredient in driving our construction output growth. The final factor has been the commitment and support of our suppliers who, working with our procurement teams, have ensured we have not encountered any significant disruption to the supply of building materials. Our construction output growth has also been achieved whilst maintaining excellent customer service and build quality. We secured five-star status in the HPF Customer Satisfaction Survey for a 13th successive year a record which is unique amongst the major house builders. And I'm also pleased to report we operated at five star with a 94% recommend score on the latest quarterly report. We aren't prepared to compromise build quality either. This starts with our site managers and the exacting standards of how our sites are operated. This is best reflected through our pride in the job awards record. where 98 of our site managers secured awards in June 2022, more than any other house builder for an 18th consecutive year. It may be difficult to appreciate the importance of these awards when outside the industry, but for site managers across the country, Pride in the Job is the house builder's industry equivalent of the Oscars and considered to be the premier accolade. Also on build quality, we again maintained our leadership position throughout FY22, ranking first amongst the major house builder group with the lowest level of reportable items at 0.13 per NHPC inspection. The NHPC are the approved building control inspector, monitor build quality, as well as providing the build mark warranty on our customers' homes. Their five mandatory build inspections of each home are, we believe, the most consistent and rigorous test of build quality, where reportable items, raised build quality issues requiring rectification through the build process. Looking forward, we are targeting further growth in our construction output to meet our completion guidance of FY23, whilst maintaining our demands for excellence in both customer service and build quality. To date in FY23, I'm pleased to report our weekly output has improved to 366 equivalent units, which is 8.9% ahead of the same period last year. Turning now to slide 10 on bill cost inflation. The breakdown of our costs on the left you've seen before. based on delivery of a 23% gross margin in line with our land acquisition minimum gross margin and a 19% operating margin. On material pricing, our procurement team has seen significant and sometimes unprecedented increases on building products, especially those without high energy and, in particular, gas content in their production process. Commodity-intensive building products have shown marked variation A number of timber products have seen prices fall back to levels seen late 2020, but other areas like plastics and steel with oil and energy impacts are still volatile and remain at elevated levels. However, there are a sizeable number of value added building products where energy and commodity inputs are diluted, and so price increases have been more modest. With this backdrop, Our supply chain has generally become far more dynamic in its pricing approach, limiting forwarded pricing certainty, but we have supply agreements in place for 73% of our materials to December 2022, and we remain committed to dealing responsibly and fairly with our suppliers, recognising the volatility faced. We also have our self-help initiatives. For example, our successful waste reduction programme is reducing the group's environmental impact as well as delivering cost reductions. Now to labour costs. Here, cost inflation has been more modest through FY22, reflecting subcontractors' desire to secure continuing work, particularly with new site openings across the industry hampered by planning delays. Labour cost inflation in FY23 will see some pressures from direct employee payroll inflation, but the challenging planning balance for new site growth and the desire to secure work by our subcontractors will, we suspect, limit subcontractor labour inflation. And this is something we have seen in recent weeks in groundworks tendering. Clearly, we're continuing to work hard to find efficiencies and savings, but as we flagged in our July update, we estimate our total bill cost inflation for FY23 will be between 9% and 10%, incorporating all materials and labour costs across infrastructure, house build, and our site and division-based operating costs. Turning now to our land bank on slide 11. our land bank remained strong and grew in plot terms in a year. Reflecting targeted growth in completions and some front-end land investment for two new divisions in Sheffield and Anglia, the owned and controlled land bank remained at 4.7 years' supply. New land approvals in the year were strong at just over 19,000 plots at an average cost of £73,000. The plot cost of approvals increased by £24,600 year on year, and there are four notable drivers which created this movement. The first was underlying house price inflation, with plot approvals experiencing the impact of rising house prices across the country. Whilst build costs also grew, land costs reflected gearing to house price inflation. The second reason related to the location of sites approved. we increasingly focused our land buying and approvals on primary rather than secondary or tertiary locations. Such locations offer better demographic and economic drivers, a price premium, and as a result generated a land value premium. These locations are also typically more resilient in a softer sales market. The average size of the homes planned for FY22 approvals also increased. in part a reflection of the primary location factor, which naturally led to a larger proportion of David Wilson approvals, and also an underlying regulatory driver with changing NDSS, or nationally described space standards. And finally, we acquired a greater proportion of service sites in the year, where significant site preparation costs have already been borne, and are as a result reflected in higher site values. In the appendices, you will find our usual land bank analysis, plus an additional slide on the movement in our land bank in terms of plots and value over the last three years. We continue to bid on a good range of land buying opportunities, particularly around larger sites, where our development and planning skills, as well as our dual branding capabilities and financial strength, create clear advantages for us. However, with the land market becoming increasingly competitive and reflecting both our strong land bank position and our disciplined application of our minimum land hurdle rates around gross margin and return on capital employed, our land approvals have moderated. And we now expect to approve land on a replacement basis in FY23 as we see how the market evolves over the months ahead. Turning to slide 12. and I would like to update you on the Gladman acquisition, which we completed at the end of January. Firstly, we have successfully completed the integration of Gladman's back office functions, whilst continuing to operate as a standalone business within the group. In the first five months after acquisition, the business has performed very well. Land sales of 1,332 plots generated sales of £23.3 million for Gladman, and an operating profit before amortisation charges of £12.4 million. The business has a terrific promotional land portfolio, which totalled more than 93,600 plots at the end of the year, with particular strength in the south and east of England. Gladman also has a great team of highly motivated land promotion and planning professionals, with excellent relationships across local planning authorities, land agents, landowners, and house builders. Our strategic land teams, with the added insights from Gladman's local market planning knowledge, are together analysing and reprioritising our portfolio to unlock more momentum for our strategic land bank. And Gladman, with access to Barrett's financial strength and best-in-class development capabilities, is now able to offer a wide range of options for landowners which have been well received by existing and prospective landowners. To date, Gladman have converted five promotion agreements into four options and one pre-old acquisition. And finally, we continue to expect to deliver an additional 500 completions annually from FY25, driving incremental growth in our core house building activities, with six land transactions agreed to date accounting for 1,500 plus. To summarise, we have delivered an excellent sales and build performance in FY22, despite supply chain challenges. We remain committed to maintaining and continuously improving our industry leading build quality and customer service. We are also confident, based on current market conditions, in our ability to build our FY23 guidance. Build cost inflation remains an industry challenge, particularly around materials with energy cost uncertainty, but we're working hard with our supply chain partners to ensure security of supply and limit build cost inflation. And finally, we're very pleased with Gladman and what its people and portfolio can deliver, both growing Gladman and driving strategic land bank gains and home completions for the group. So thank you everyone, and with that I'll hand over to Mike.

Thanks, Stephen. And good morning, everyone. And like David and Stephen, I'm pleased to see everybody back in person. So I'd now like to take you through the highlights of our financial performance for FY22. So first, a look at the headline numbers on slide 15. And as you can see, we've delivered a very strong financial performance this year. And we're the first national house builder to return to pre-pandemic trading levels. Group revenue was £5.27 billion, 9.5% ahead of last year, and almost 11% ahead of FY19 before the pandemic. Adjusted gross profit was £1.3 billion, up 17.3% on last year, with adjusted gross margin up 160 basis points to 24.8%, and 200 basis points ahead of the level achieved in FY19. Adjusted operating profit was £1,055,000,000, 14.8% ahead of FY21, with the adjusted operating margin at 20%. Our failure results have been impacted by adjusted items and more on those in a few minutes, but at the operating profit level, these costs totaled £408.2 million. Adjusted EPS was 83 pence per share, 12.9% ahead of the 73.5 pence in FY21, and 12% above adjusted earnings of 74.1 pence in FY19. We closed the year with a very strong net cash position at over £1.1 billion. And finally, on return on capital, we saw a further significant improvement to 30%, and that represents the group's best rocky return in more than 15 years. So the chart on slide 16 is a familiar one and breaks down the components of the movement in our adjusted operating margin. So there are a few things to highlight here. Moving from left to right, firstly, the impact of volume growth was relatively modest with completion growth of 3.9%, delivering a 10 basis point improvement. Second, the most material was net inflation, where sales price inflation of 7.4% on completions in the year was ahead of build cost inflation of around 6%, benefiting margin by 140 basis points. And third, our ongoing margin initiatives, as Stephen referenced earlier, continue to drive underlying improvements. with a 50 basis point benefit from our regional businesses, where new sites, the adoption of standard house types, and the refinement of our house type designs all contributed to margin gain. And finally, administrative expenses reduced margin by 100 basis points, and I'll touch on that more in a few minutes. So with these and other smaller movements, we delivered the full year adjusted operating margin of 20%. And so just to provide some colour on the overhead position, slide 17 breaks out the key components of our administrative expenses. Overall, before adjusted items, these increased by £55.2 million and But as flagged at the interim, this included a £3.3 million reduction in sundry income and a non-cash £10.4 million charge relating to our investment in a new CRM platform. And together, these accounted for around a quarter of the increase in the year. A number of other factors also impacted administrative costs, but I'd highlight two in particular. So firstly, people-related costs accounted for a further quarter of the increase, reflecting additional headcount and incentives, and also the support we've given staff this year, including extending private medical cover to all staff and the impact of accelerating our FY23 salary review to 1 April 2022. And secondly, the incremental cost in relation to Gladman, reflecting both acquisition costs, Gladman's underlying overhead base, and customer relationship amortization charges, which taken together, total the further quarter of the increase. And if we look ahead to FY23, we expect total administrative costs of around £300 million. So let me just walk through the key drivers of the increase. So firstly, we've previously flagged our planned investment in the building safety unit to help us deliver our commitment under the building safety pledge, and that will be around £10 million. Secondly, there's around £11 million of annualisation costs in relation to Gladman, including the non-cash intangible amortisation costs. Our sundry income is forecast to be lower than FY22 at around £9 million, compared to £21 million in FY22. And we'll invest around £5 million in our two new operating divisions and the new timber frame factory. So the remaining increase reflects underlying cost inflation in the cost base, and that includes the cost of our employee support measures, as previously outlined. So turning to adjusted items on slide 18. And during the year, within operating profit, we incurred £433 million in relation to legacy property costs.

396 million was in relation to the commitments we made under the building safety. 30.5 million in relation to reinforce.

And this was offset by supply chain recoveries of 25 million pounds received in the year, resulting in a net charge of 408.2 million. And finally, 4.3 million of costs were incurred through our joint venture vehicles. So our business is focused on some very... The operating framework has driven discipline in the business and has helped us to deliver a strong financial performance this year. The framework itself is unchanged this year with the exception of the change in dividend policy that we announced alongside our half-year results. However, it's worth noting that we have a strong balance sheet position going into FY23, with a really strong land bank, net cash of over £1.1 billion, and land creditors remaining stable at 22% of the land bank. As we previously flagged, the Board has been considering our net cash position in the context of our future plans for the business. So as well as investments such as our new timber frame facility and ongoing investments in the business, we're mindful of the future commitments that we've made under the building safety pledge and also current levels of market uncertainty. However, we concluded that in FY23, there is £200 million of surplus capital available to return to shareholders. And accordingly, we've announced today that we'll commence a share buyback programme of that amount over the remainder of the financial year. So turning to our balance sheet now on slide 20 and some of the notable changes. The increase in goodwill in intangibles essentially reflects the acquisition of Gladman at the end of January 2022. Our gross land bank has increased by £394 million and land creditors by £75 million, reflecting our increased land buying activity. WIPP was £162 million higher than last year, reflecting our success in driving construction output as Stephen referenced earlier, with almost 400 equivalent homes constructed ahead of total completions in the year. Gladman's land promotion activities are also now included within inventories. Our investment in part-exchange properties was essentially unchanged and remains at historically low levels. The net cash movement I'll cover in a moment, but the movement in other net assets and liabilities is primarily a reflection of the building safety pledge provision. Net assets at the 30th of June were £5.6 billion, advancing 3.3% or £179 million over the year, and this was after a total dividend distribution of £337 million. So moving on now to our cash flow on slide 21. This chart highlights the strength of our operating cash generation after our investment in the business during the year. And taking you through some of the detail, we made net cash interest and tax payments of £138 million. The £379 million non-cash and working capital inflow is dominated, as I said, by the add-back of the adjusting item for building safety. This will reverse as remediation activities gather pace over the next three to five years. The cash invested in WIP of £152 million reflected the increased level of construction output mentioned earlier. Net land spend is broken out in more detail, with cash land spend of just over £1 billion in the year, and we currently expect cash land spend of around £1.2 billion for FY23. The resulting operating cash inflow for the year was £428.3 million, with dividend payments of £337 million, reflecting the final FY21 dividend and the interim dividend for FY22. Finally, the acquisition of Gladman, as well as our investment in the new Derby timber frame facility, account for the investment outflow of £270 million, resulting in a net cash outflow overall of £178.8 million. So moving on now to highlight some guidance points for FY23 not already covered. So first of all, we expect to deliver between 18,400 and 18,800 total home completions, with a small reduction in the affordable mix to 21%. Our interest cost guidance is £38 million, with £10 million of cash interest and £28 million of non-cash charges. Now this looks like a significant increase in the year, but really reflects the requirement to discount our building safety provision. This discounting unwinds annually through the finance charge and equates to around £8 million per annum. Our year-end net cash position is expected to be around £800 million, and that's after completion of the £200 million share buyback. Now, this will, as always, be dependent on land buying and our ability to continue to invest in working capital ahead of completion during the year. Taking account of the current scheduled increase in corporation tax from 19% to 25%, as well as the full year impact of the residential property developer tax, we expect our overall tax rate to increase to around 24.5%. And finally, really just a reminder, in line with our revised dividend policy, we intend to pay an ordinary dividend with respect to FY23 on two times dividend cover. And so to summarise then on slide 23, we've delivered an excellent financial performance in the year and the business is now ahead of its pre-pandemic performance across all key adjusted measures. Going into FY23, we have a strong balance sheet with over £1.1 billion of cash and of course £700 million of undrawn facilities. This balance sheet strength, coupled with our operational performance, has enabled us to reduce dividend cover, returning £337 million to shareholders by dividend in FY22, to further reduce cover to two times in FY23 as planned, and of course to announce a £200 billion share buyback, as we've done this morning. So thanks everyone, and I'll now hand back to David.

Thanks Mike and thank you Stephen. So as Stephen and Mike have shown, we feel as a business that we have a very strong investment proposition and I'll highlight some of these attributes on slide 25. We aim to operate with one of the shortest land bank in the industry. This improves our return on capital employed and also reduces our risk profile. Our land bank is in a very good position in terms of planning status, quality of location and average site size. We have very strong and highly experienced build and sales teams. They operate with very exacting standards and they focus on the detail to drive out the efficiency and the improvement day in and day out. And finally, we lead the industry on sustainability because both we understand how important it is, not just for our stakeholders, but also for our business operations. These attributes put us in a very strong position. to grow volumes, deliver sustainable margins and generate attractive returns for our shareholders over the long term. Now turning to the market fundamentals on slide 26. We have seen decades of housing under supply across the country. and successive governments have put increased house building and home ownership at the centre of their domestic policy agenda. Consumer confidence has clearly been affected by the macroeconomic environment, notably around inflation levels, increased cost of living and the uncertain political backdrop. As Stephen has outlined, the land market, whilst competitive, continues to offer very attractive opportunities, particularly around larger sites, which play both to our development and our financial strengths. And whilst Help to Buy is effectively ending this autumn, the mortgage market has become more competitive with a growing range of lenders and mortgage products. This is creating choice for our home buyers, albeit mortgage rates have increased as base rates have changed. Looking in more detail at planning and the land market, slide 27 charts planning consents and net new build additions in England, along with the Savills Land Price Index. Planning consents on an annual basis, the light green line, have remained ahead of new build home additions, but as you can see, permissions peaked in June 2021 and were down almost 9% to March 2022. There have been significant declines in planning consents in certain parts of the country, And more broadly, the planning process has slowed down considerably. Specific issues exist, such as nutrient neutrality, which has effectively stopped planning on a large number of sites across 74 local planning authorities. Meanwhile, planning departments across the country are under-resourced and have experienced significant budget cuts alongside employee turnover in recent years. The government clearly need to act to address both these issues to ensure that site starts can continue to grow. Looking at the mortgage environment in more detail on slide 28. Here's a chart you've seen before showing the proportion of average post-tax income spent on monthly mortgage interest and capital repayments. The affordability of mortgages following recent rate rises has clearly been impacted, but you can see at around 35% of post-tax earnings, the affordability measure, while slightly above the long-run average, is still significantly below the levels we've seen at previous turning points in the market. Clearly mortgage lending has been far more disciplined in recent years. Homebuyers mortgage payments carry a significantly higher capital repayment, reducing the gearing of interest rate movements on monthly mortgage payments. On the right hand side of the chart, I just wanted to highlight how mortgage market competition has evolved. particularly looking at 95% loan-to-value lending. Here you can see that the spread between the two-year fixed rates available on 85% and 95% lending has narrowed considerably, with the mortgage rate at 95%... ...21%. Turning to slide 29, we are absolutely committed to being the leading national sustainable house builder. As you know, we have set ourselves ambitious targets to reduce our scope one and two emissions by 29% from 2018 levels and to achieve that by 2025. We recognise that our commitment to reducing our carbon footprint also relies on changing our own behaviours. So, as they were in FY22, carbon reduction targets will be included in our long-term performance plans granted in FY23. We also have a science-based target to reduce Scope 3 emissions by 24% per square metre by 2030. Tackling emissions from homes in use offers the greatest near-term opportunity for scope 3 emission reduction. Our other scope 3 emissions are in our supply chain and we will work with our supply chain partners to drive and achieve reduction. We are committed to having net zero emissions from our operations by 2040. Now turning to three other specific areas around sustainability on slide 30. I'm pleased to report that our action plan for waste reduction, which Stephen touched on, has delivered a reduction of 15.6% in waste intensity in the year. Waste reduction is positive both for the environment and also our build costs. Recognising its importance, we will again incorporate a waste reduction target in our annual bonus scheme in FY23. New building standards on our new developments will be applicable to all of our homes from mid-June 2023. Our design and technical teams, through our fabric-first approach, have created specific solutions for our house types to meet these new standards. And looking to the future home standards in 2025, we launched Delamere Park, our first off-gas grid development in the year, which has seen strong home buyer demand. Finally, we completed the Z-House, a unique concept home which has received huge interest and is a key step in our plans to build zero carbon homes in use by 2030. On biodiversity net gain, we completed the rollout of biodiversity net gain best practice during the year across the group. Our divisions are on target to ensure that all new developments going through planning from January 2023 achieve a biodiversity net gain of at least 10%. Now, to bring you up to date on the current trading picture summarised here in slide 31. Our private sales rate per outlet per week over the period through to 28th August is has been at 0.6. This is 27% below the 0.82 we saw in the equivalent strong period last year. And below, but less so, the 0.7 rate in the same period pre-COVID in 2019. It is worth noting from the chart on the right that leads per outlet are continuing to trend ahead of the levels seen in the early months of FY20 prior to the pandemic. This suggests that home buyer demand is very much still there. But while market fundamentals remain strong with good mortgage availability and a continued imbalance between supply and demand, The limited availability of new homes for completion this side of Christmas, coupled with a wider macroeconomic uncertainty and low consumer confidence, is resulting in a lower reservation rate, where customers are less willing to commit to a purchase some months in the future. However, we recognise that the autumn selling season traditionally sees a stronger pickup compared to July and August. And also, we entered the year with a very strong forward sales position. So notwithstanding the reduced reservation rate, at the 28th of August, we were 55% forward sold with respect to private, wholly owned completions for FY23. and 59% of the private order book for FY23 is already exchanged. In summary, we have delivered an excellent financial and operational performance in FY22, very much thanks to the hard works of our teams across the country and the support of our supply chain. We continue to lead the industry in quality, service and sustainability, which further strengthens the resilience of our business. Looking ahead, we recognise that there are significant macroeconomic uncertainties, but the fundamentals are strong and there is consumer demand for high quality, energy efficient new homes. We have a robust financial position, as Mike has outlined, with substantial net cash. So we remain vigilant to the wider economy, but we plan to grow our build activity and deliver completion growth in the year ahead. Thanks very much, and we'll now be happy to move to questions. I think we have a roving mic, so the mic will start roving shortly.

Okay, Gregor, you've got the mic? We'll give it to you after, Charlie. It's Gregor Kugic from UBS, I guess. Two questions. So the first one is just a sort of bigger picture one, and obviously you showed the chart on affordability, but it's looking like rates are going to go up more, at least if the market is correct about base rates. So I guess the question is at what level do you kind of get worried? Is it sort of 40? Is it 45? I guess historically it's that kind of level where the market starts coming under pressure. And then... Related to that, what are your contingency planning if things start getting a bit rough on both volumes and pricing? You see your cost is actually going up. So what can you do to counteract this? And then the second question is on the land market. I think the observation, I guess, it was quite hot last year. What are you seeing now? Is it starting to cool already? Are you starting to get better terms and conditions and pricing? Or is it a bit too early for that? Thank you.

Okay Gregor, thanks. So if I start off in terms of affordability and contingency planning and then I'll just give them maybe a couple of comments on the land market and pass over to Stephen. So affordability, just a few sort of headline points. I've said previously that I think the affordability chart is just so important in terms of understanding where the market is. So we've put the affordability chart up over for a decade and I think it's very, very important. But we have to recognise it's not the most scientific measure. It's focusing on a single person's income against the house prices and interest rates. And therefore, given that so many homes are purchased on dual income rather than single income, it's a slightly rough measure. I think as you touched on, Gregor, if you look at the chart, you would say once you go above 40s, you need to be more on alert. There generally hasn't been problems below 40s, but there tends to be problems above 40s, but sometimes it's been high 40s. But we recognise that salary inflation, which is clearly happening, will help to mitigate some of that affordability challenge. And we also recognise that house price inflation is tempering and that will also help to address some of the affordability challenge. So I wouldn't say that we are overly concerned but we've always looked at that affordability position very closely and as you know we've always presented it. In terms of contingency planning we have very very well structured and rehearsed contingency plans and I think everyone's aware that most house builders put some form of contingency plan in place post the referendum outcome. And there was an immediate response is to buy less land. And likewise with COVID, when our sites were closed for six or seven weeks, we had recruitment phrases and we had less land buying. So I don't think there's any issue in terms of our preparedness with regard to contingency planning. I'll just touch on the admin costs. I think it's right as a business that we should invest for the future and we should be ambitious in terms of our plans to grow the business. So looking at opening new divisions or opening a new factory, these are not short-term decisions. And our factory is constructed and will be fitted out over the next few months. These are five, ten year decisions. And likewise in terms of opening new divisions, we have to buy the land and set the management teams to be in a position to open the divisions. So again, these are not short term decisions, they are decisions that are being made on a five, ten and longer basis. In terms of the land market, we've said Previously, I mean, we will use different words to describe it, but, you know, competitive, I think, would be a word that would be used for the land market. And we've generally said that we've tended to focus on larger sites rather than smaller sites where we feel we can be more competitive in that position. So I think you've got probably two major factors at play in the market. I would say most people are probably a little cautious about the process of buying land. Just at a headline level, because you can see what's happening in terms of reservations. But there is a real shortage of land coming through planning. I touched on it, the nutrient neutrality, which has been well documented, is an increasing issue. So I think you've got those sort of counter forces which net-net would still say that the market is very competitive.

Yeah, from my perspective, the land market remains very competitive. We're typically seeing, for good quality sites, 20 to 28 bids for a typical site, which is... I think that's because there's a shortage of sites with implementable planning consent. So those with the planning consent in place are highly desirable. There's a shortage of sites for planning, as I say. A lot of that, as David just touched on, is driven by the nutrient neutrality issues, which is sort of preventing some of the large sites coming through. And there's 74 local authorities now with nutrient neutrality policies, which is holding back land coming through. From our perspective, we are robustly applying our disciplines of minimum hurdle rates on anything we purchase. We are focused on the primary locations and that is key for us. As I mentioned in my presentation, history tells us that primary locations tend to sell well even in a softer market environment. And, of course, the other thing, I think the other dynamic about the market is there is a lot of large sites coming through, and we did a bit of research recently, and there's something like 600 sites coming through with greater than 1,000 units on, which there's only certain types of buyers, house builders, who can acquire those sites. So they are available with good margin potential and clearly on the deferred terms. But we monitor our hit rate and we make sure that we're buying the land we need to buy. But it remains very, very competitive. I hope that helps.

Thanks very much.

Charlie Campbell at Liberum. I've got three, if I can, two of them are pretty quick. Just in terms of, you talked again about having a short land bank being a virtue. I guess that gives you more risk to planning delays than others. How do you sort of square that circle, first of all? Secondly, sort of a bit more detail, just in terms of the cladding provisions, I think you've told us those will unwind over three or five years. Is that the best way to forecast it, just us coming down over four sort of linearly, or would you tell us to do something else? And then the last question is on the medium-term volume kind of aspiration, 21,500. So I've been doing this for a while, and I was taught sort of almost as a fact when I started that no one can ever do more than 20,000 units a year. Why is that thinking now outdated?

Okay. Charlie, thank you. So Mike will cover with regard to cladding provisions and the timing of that and I'll sort of go with the land bank question and the medium term volume targets. So I think that first of all in terms of the land bank, so I think a really key thing in terms of looking at the land bank is looking at both the number of plots and the depth of the land bank. So if we're at 3.7 or 3.8 years, But the second part of it is looking at the ratio of the number of plots to the number of sites. And I think a strength of our land bank is that we are generating a lot of sites from our land bank. So just as an illustration of that, I think when we came out of the land market as a result of COVID, We did a lot of work to split sites, and I know I'm biased, but this is a great advantage of having two brands. We can split sites very quickly and say, well, we'll allocate 70 or 80 plots to David Wilson, and we'll create another site, and so to get that efficiency. So when you look at planning delays... I think we have got much less exposure than many in terms of planning delays. And we've got to stay focused on that. We've got to stay focused on the efficiency of our land bank and make sure that we're getting as many sites out of it as we can. But I do think it provides us downside protection. But the reality is we've got to have an efficient land bank. That's the key thing. And I do think that ratio is fundamentally important. You know, what is the number of plots that people are saying is in their land bank? And what is the number of sites that people are saying is in their land bank? You know, fundamentally important. Stephen, do you want to add to that?

Yeah, if only I had a bit more. Yeah, as Dave says, it's a massive strength. And throughout the lockdown period, we focused on a lot of our largest sites. So for example, we've got a site in Cambridge, one in Yate, Bristol, where we attack the site from both ends. We put different character areas on the site. So maybe both ends would have a David Wilson, both ends would have a Barrett. But then in between there, we'd also have another Barrett site in terms of Barrett has a wide range of two beds, three beds, four beds. So you'd have two phases from Barrett with a smaller three-story type townhouses and more conventional. So in some of the larger sites, we can operate from five outlets. with different brands and different character areas of those sites. In terms of planning, we've got all the planning in place we need for FY23. And for FY24, we're about 93% of our sites have got either a detail or an outline. So with an outline, the back's broken in terms of getting the planning consent. So we're in a pretty good place from a planning point of view. It is taking us longer.

It's 60, 70 weeks typically to get a planning consent.

... which speeded up planning inquiries, that has improved, so in some cases it's quicker to go for appeal than it is to go through a plan application.

Okay, and then just in terms of the median time volume targets, It clearly is very possible for us to do more than 20,000 completions. I understand totally the sort of backdrop to it. And I think the backdrop to why people would say you can't do more than 20,000, I think the reality is it is very dependent on the overall market. Just to try and illustrate, if you look at, Barrett and David Wilson where we made the acquisition in 2007. I mean the pro forma numbers for that year, not the reported numbers, but the pro forma numbers for that year were above 20,000. But I think the reality is that we've had 40 years where we've had about three years of output above 240,000. So I believe that, I mean, us building more houses is fundamentally important for the country. And we have to be set to be able to contribute to that. You know, I don't think we can sit and say, well, our capacity is X or our capacity is Y. The incremental costs to us are relatively small in terms of opening a new division. So what we are saying is, look, we have the capacity now where we feel we could go beyond 20,000. But equally, we don't believe we can grow the business by more than 3% to 5%, because there's other constraints, planning, for example, or labour availability or materials availability, that will be much greater constraints than our ability to build and sell 21,500 homes. And then Mike on the cladding provision.

Cladding, sir. 223 buildings that are under review as part of the building safety units remit across 69 developments. I think by its nature because of the investigation phase and then we're dealing with all the freeholders and so on and in some cases needing planning permission as well, I think it's going to be back-end weighted towards the end of the five-year period. So I think the first couple of years I'd expect relatively modest expenditure unless we can get to simple solutions and then I would expect the rest of it will come through in the third to the fifth year. So I think if you look at the provision utilisation, I would have it more in the three to five year bracket than one to two. Charlie, thank you.

Good morning. Chris Millington at Numis. Free as well, if I can, please. I just wonder if you could comment over pricing trends over summer and kind of how you're approaching that at the moment and maybe just put in a comment around down valuations. We're sharing a bit more about that in the press. Next one is just about this land bank productivity point you were making before, David. I'm just wondering if planning was kind of at pre-COVID levels and sales rates weren't elevated, what do you think your land bank would be taking out in terms of outlet numbers at the moment? It might just give us a feel as to kind of how the outlet profile may progress. And the last one is really just a checking query. Where's your nine-month HBS score and how's it moved over the year?

Okay, so I think I'm going to try those myself. So pricing trends over the summer have been firm. So if you look at, we obviously see our data, we see competitor data in terms of pricing trends, and I would say that level of incentives have ticked up a little. but not in a particularly significant way. And, you know, we made reference in the statement to the fact that, you know, prices have been strong. And I think that's really a byproduct of a lack of availability. So there is less demand, but there is less availability or less immediate availability. Nobody's really got stock. So I think historically... If you went back three or four years ago, you know, we might have had 400 or 500 units of stock on a comparable basis compared to maybe 100 to 150 now. So big, big difference in terms of stock. How that will play out will be very much dependent on how the market performs in the autumn. I think that's clearly going to be a factor. In terms of site numbers, I mean, my sense would be, you know, we would be like to be looking at 370, 380 outlets. That's a combination of the land market and the planning process. It's not just the planning process. But there's two things that played into that. One is, you know, the land and the planning side of it, but the other is the demand side of it because our rates of sale have been so much higher than we would have anticipated. You know, you can see that, you know, last year we had a strong calm. But, I mean, actually last year was down in the prior year. So the reality is that our whole rate of sale has just been so much quicker. So land that we were buying in 18 and 19, you know, we've gone through those sites so much faster than we would have anticipated. But I would think certainly 10% more in terms of size. And then nine months score... we're at around 80% as a nine-month score. So we have targets in place to bring up that nine-month score. As Stephen touched on, our eight-week score is at 94%. I think there's always going to be a delta between the short-term and the longer-term score. That's probably true of any product in terms of the customer perception. But we have clear targets in place to bring that up.

In terms of where was it in the prior year?

Slightly lower, but not much, so similar. Okay.

Thanks. Will Jones from Redburn. Three, if I could. First, just on building materials, if you were to put it all into a basket and compare today versus, say, three months ago, are we steady or down a bit or maybe up a bit still? And then the last two are really just technical ones. So what sales rate are you budgeting to achieve for the year? And with that in mind, do you think your order book will be fully normalised by June 23? And the final one was just what house price inflation from here you're expecting within that gross margin guidance of fading back to 23, are you assuming today effectively holds? Thanks.

Okay. The last two sound quite difficult, so Mike will deal with that. And building materials, Stephen, so if you want, Stephen, I'll start on building materials.

Building materials, compared to the last three months, clearly those with energy dependency in terms of high volumes of energy tend to be more volatile. But we haven't really seen any sort of movement since February, March time. So the prices are pretty static. They went up substantially and they've sort of stayed there. Other than timber, And in terms of structural timber, imported timber, we've seen that come back substantially. So I think we saw something like a 19% decrease in July, 10% decrease in August, and September we've seen another smaller increase. So timber has substantially come back, and that is filtering through now into some of our timber frame product costs and things like that. whereas products with energy, plastics, steel, are still at elevated levels. But we are starting to see some of the suppliers now coming forward, talking about longer-term deals. We're seeing it ourselves. We've seen it in the reports that the RMI market tends to be softening, so that in turn is pushing them more towards the house builders. And so we'll see over the next few months.

So in terms of sales rate, we don't tend to talk about what we're planning the sales rate to be for the year in a sense, but we would be planning for it to be at more normalised levels. We've clearly come into the year with a very strong forward order book, and so in arriving at the guidance that we've given of 18,400 to 18,800, for the full year, that sort of takes into account a more sort of normal level of sales going forward. And in terms of the order book, I mean, clearly a 55% forward order book is unusually high, and a more normal level would be in the sort of 25% to 30% range. So, you know, we would see that coming back into line.

I think some moderation of prices. I mean, we've clearly said that there's been significant house price inflation in the year. So we obviously do expect that to moderate. So it's somewhere between zero and seven. I thought that was how it worked.

Morning. It's Sita Ekblom from Morgan Stanley. I've got two questions. We've heard from new political leadership that there is the potential to abandon centrally set government house building targets. Do you have a perspective on that? Does that even matter? And then the second question is, if you had a wish list for the new minister and you think about all the challenges to your business and how those can potentially impact your return on capital and growth, if we think about planning, skills availability, ESG considerations, what would you like the minister to have at the top of the inbox? Thank you.

Okay, thank you. I mean, it's clearly early days and obviously the Prime Minister has said that they've got priorities to address, which we understand. I think I would start with two really headline points. First of all, there is huge economic activity tied into house building. You could talk about the broader construction sector, but house building... Housebuilding has got a very, very strong economic multiplier. We've seen that play out previously. It's largely UK companies using UK-built manufactured materials and UK labour. So I think it's very, very important that the government recognise the economic importance of housebuilding and the wider construction sector. I think secondly, and successive governments have said this over 20, 30 years, I do think that our house building, our lack of house building has created a crisis in terms of availability and pricing of houses and generational imbalances in terms of who has housing and who doesn't have housing. So I don't think it's important whether there's top-down targets or bottom-up targets, but I think what is important is that the government recognises that if we don't build more homes, then that imbalance will simply be perpetuated. In terms of specific asks, I mean, we have written to government previously, obviously a different government, but we've written to government previously and relatively recently saying, we think it's very important that they set a clear roadmap to zero carbon. We have set our own position that we will build zero carbon homes for 2030, but if that is not set in regulation, then clearly the industry will behave in different ways, because not every company will make a decision to build zero carbon homes. And then secondly, and to a large extent it comes back down to this economic point, is that If you look at the value that is tied into the issues on planning to do with nutrient neutrality, that to me is a multi-billion pound decision to release those homes for build. And so I think addressing that as one single thing to do would make a big difference for the industry over the next couple of years because it will free up a whole lot of land that currently will not be built on. But I think will be built on at some point and therefore the government may as well free that up sooner rather than later. Thank you.

First on the sales rate, the kind of recent trading, have there been any big regional differences or differences amongst kind of between price points of properties that are significant? And then second, when we think about help to buy ending in October, Would you expect a kind of boost to sales rates in the autumn sellings as people rush in or you've just got limited availability of help to buy? You've kind of managed that differently. Just wondered how that might distort and has it had any impact over the summer as well?

Okay, it is very high. So I think on regional variations, we're not going to get drawn into it. I mean, I think you understand why. I think we've always been quite consistent with that. I mean, it's a relatively short trading period. If there was anything that was of major importance, we would have flagged it. So I think that the answer is no, there isn't really anything particularly important, either in terms of volume or pricing. I think the trends are reasonably consistent. In terms of helped by ending, just two points to make really. the house builders have not been allowed for a reason that I understand we've not been allowed to advertise that Help to Buy is ending because clearly if we were allowed to we would have been doing that 12 months ago or 18 months ago So I think quite rightly the point that you make is one of availability. I mean, there is an increasing number of our sites where if you come to the site and say, I would like to buy a house and I would like to use Help to Buy, you're just too late. We're building for the December completion date on Help to Buy and we don't have any more availability. So the reality is it's not going to be like it would be with a stamp duty holiday where there'll be a big rush. Any rush that was there has already happened.

Good morning, Rajesh Patki from J.P. Morgan. I've got two, please. Firstly, on the overhead and interest course was a very helpful slide to understand your guidance on 23. Assuming everything goes to plan, is that the level you're aiming for going forward beyond 23 as well? And secondly, on Gladman, what are your expectations on the profitability of the business for this year? Do you expect it to perform at the same run rate as the last five months? Thank you.

Okay. I will pass both of those to Mike.

Thank you very much. On the overhead, I mean, to be honest, we set out in the slide the building blocks to get to the 300 this year. And a lot of those are either annualization effects of things that we've already done or other investments in growth for the future. So I don't expect to see the same level of increase. going forward. I think when you look at the new divisions in the timber frame factory, there will be a sort of further annualization effect of a small amount in 24. But I think we're seeing then the level being reasonably stable going forward. In terms of Gladman, when we acquired the business, we said it had a run rate EBITDA of around £20 million a year. I think that's a good level to sort of think about it for the first couple of years. And then as we're able to start to grow the business going forward, then it will start to go up. But I wouldn't write in big increases in that going forward for 23.

John Fraser Andrews, HSBC. Three for me as well, please. The first one's probably for Mike. The drop in sundry income, the 12 million, please. The second, on the land hurdle rate, the 23%. It's previously been said by yourselves and widely that the future home standards are all within that. Does that also apply to biodiversity standards? And any comments on the building safety levy are early indications that that is also being factored into land purchases. And then the third one is around the current trading. Can you comment on whether there's been any movement in house prices, underlying house price inflation since the exit rate at the year end? So in the two months, has there been any movement And also in the land market, has there been any movement? And finally, around that, have your cancellations changed at all in the two months versus the months prior to that? Thank you.

There's a lot in there. So Mike, do you want to start on the sundry income?

Start on the sundry income, which I mean in a sense by its nature is slightly unforecastable because it tends to be things that we haven't planned. It's things like freehold reversion sales and other bits and pieces, John. So as we sit here today, we don't have line of sight to the same level that we've had for the last couple of years. I'd probably hold it at that sort of level going forward in terms of what we can see today. But there's nothing, you know, it tends to be a collection of various bits and pieces that get aggregated together. So there's no sort of one thing that I'd point to and say that's not happening this year and it's happened in the past. But I think the level that we're seeing in 2023, if you think about that as being a sensible level going forward, is probably the best way to think about it.

John, if I pick up the auto, I mean, I think in terms of land hurdle, I mean, I think the headline answer is yes. You know, as we are looking to buy land today, we are factoring in all the costs that we are aware of in relation to that land acquisition. So that would include costs relating to the future home standard as an example. Clearly, as you move towards the future home standard in 2026 as opposed to 2023, The costs are less certain, and our experience of it historically is that costs have reduced substantially as there is more demand. I mean, the most obvious example is a heat pump. If we're going to install an air source heat pump, and currently the UK... build and sell on heat pumps is sub 50,000 but could be north of 100,000 then clearly the unit cost will fall. Building safety levy I would say no because I think that's very unclear. As you know it was originally going to be a levy for high rise only and is now being put forward as a levy for all developments. Indicative levels probably something like 1,500 to 2,000 pounds of property, but unclear as to when that will come in exactly the form of that. So as a specific cost, I would say no. In terms of current trading, I mean, It's a little bit back to what I said before. I don't want to start to really try and disaggregate it. I mean, I would say on house prices, we've not seen any movement really from the July or the June position. We've seen a little bit more incentive, so perhaps some more carpets and so on. But it's, I think, a relatively small scale. The land market, I would say, if anything, is probably stronger than it was. I think in part, I touched on this earlier, I think it's partly one hand maybe people are a little bit concerned about trading because we've obviously seen a weaker trading backdrop in July and August, but that's been over a relatively short period. But there's been a huge amount of discussion about nutrient neutrality and the problems in planning. I mean, our now Prime Minister actually talked about the problems to do with nutrient neutrality. So it's been a pretty high-profile issue. And I think it's getting people nervous about the amount of land that is locked up in that problem. So I think, if anything, the housing market has become stronger.

that will be because there are more cancellations.

In terms of the specifics on cancellations, we're looking at cancellations that are moving up from about 17 to 20-something, you know, kind of low 20s. But you have to bear in mind that that will generally be cancellations from busier trading periods coming into quieter trading periods in July and August, and therefore the percentages are inflated. So in absolute terms, there's no great change. And there was a comment made earlier about down valuations.

I mean, we monitor down valuations by site.

Amigala from Citi. Just two questions for me. First one was on Gladman acquisition. Post the acquisition, have you seen any changes of their relationship with, say, the larger builders? Has there been any shifts or patterns that you anticipate going through the medium term where the mix really moves towards the business that they do, the mix moves towards, say, smaller? sit here today and if we have a more pronounced recession over the next two years and you see more land opportunities, would you be tempted to extend that land bank and pick up more land for the medium term? And given the sort of structural planning challenges in the UK, do you now see into the next 10 or 15 years you would have to stick with a much longer land bank because of the visibility that it needs?

Okay, so if I just touch on Gladman initially, and then Stephen can talk more about Gladman and what they're doing from a sort of business perspective, although it's obviously relatively early days, and then I'll talk about Land Bank Flint. So, I mean, I think in terms of Gladman, As we said at the time, a key driver for Gladman from our point of view is we want to be able to buy some of the land from the Gladman business. And as Stephen touched on in his presentation, I think we've been quite successful over a short period in being able to access some of the land. My sense is the profile hasn't really seen much change in terms of who they're selling to. Yeah, yeah.

Yeah, yeah. So, yeah, Ladman will continue to operate as they were. And I think you have to sort of put the Ladman land into two buckets, two separate buckets. The bucket that's got planning permission, it's been through the promotion stage, it's got the discharge of conditions, and it's ready to be marketed. And that is being marketed openly. Other house builders are buying that land. Then there's another bucket, which is sort of coming through the allocation stage or at the early stages of promotion. where certain landowners have been happy to enter into an exclusive arrangement with Barrett to take those sites out at an earlier stage. So there's, for example, to bring it alive, there's a site for 500 units in West Midlands where the site had got a planning consent. The landowner didn't want to wait another nine, twelve months to go through the discharge. processing, getting planning. So that 500 unit was sold exclusively to Barrett. And that was the intention. We acquired Labman to access additional land at an earlier stage to bring into our own strategic and increase our profile. And we're happy that we will be able to achieve the 500 units per year incremental growth we talked about at the acquisition stage from 2025. So it's working very, very well and is exactly as we planned. Okay, that helps.

I think on the land bank, we have 29 divisions and clearly we have an overall group average and some of the divisions will have more land and some of the divisions will have less land. So with that caveat that some of the divisions can be relatively short of land, I think we see that if there is a slowdown in the market, then one of the immediate by-products is we have a much longer land bank. So I think that there is then... If we're selling at 0.6 or 0.7, clearly the land bank length is extended and therefore there's less pressure on the business to buy land. And I think historically what's tended to happen is that the market will settle to a point where people feel, okay, that market is now stable. And there is typically good land buying opportunities close to that point in time. But most people have tended to come out of the market for a period of time. And then everyone argues that they were the first back in.

Morning, Sam Cullen from Peel Hunt. I've just got one because I'm sure Clyde's got a few after me. So just on the scope three emissions, how much of that is kind of within your gift, that 24% reduction target versus... you're waiting for your suppliers to change the way in which they operate? And is there a broad enough supplier base to switch the buyer if your suppliers don't change their behaviour?

Yeah, so I think, first of all, a lot of it is in our control. So we have to break down on the slide. Just to look at the slide number. So on slide 29, we break it down, albeit it is in very, very small print. But I think when you look at scope three, thank you, a lot of the scope three is about the emissions from the homes in use. And therefore, that is all in our control. Now, there's lots of reasons, not least supply chain, as to why it's going to take us time to be able to build completely zero carbon homes. But that will eliminate a very big part of the scope 3, as you can see on the chart. In terms of the material supply chain, I think there's two parts to it. The first one is the extent that we can change materials. Now, not exclusively because of sustainability, but sustainability was definitely a factor. We made a decision to go down a route where we would do significantly more timber fretting. And we made that decision in 2018 and we bought Oregon in 2019. So we've set that strategy in place. The second part of it is then what the material suppliers are doing and I mean you'll be talking to material suppliers and clearly the material suppliers for them it's their scope one and scope two emissions. So they are hugely focused on it and in a lot of cases they're being incentivised to reduce their emissions and I think some of the products, the decisions they need to make are relatively straightforward and they can reduce emissions. In other areas, for example, brick production, clearly the decisions are much more complicated, or cement production. I mean, for us, cement is a relatively small part of the total, maybe about 2%. But for the cement companies, obviously, it's everything that they do. So what we see is that the supply chain, particularly in terms of large suppliers, are doing huge amounts in terms of reducing emissions. I won't name individual suppliers but you know the brick manufacturers, the cement companies, people that are dealing with heavy machinery, you know they're doing a huge amount in terms of reducing emissions.

I'm just going to keep it to one and in some ways I'm a bit surprised nobody's asked you so far on share buybacks. 200 million, obviously it's a decent number, but I suspect quite a few of us in here would have expected a bigger figure. and I appreciate the £405 million that you've got as your surplus capital, but clearly if you look at the land creditor profile, that's aged as you've bought bigger and bigger sites, and I suspect that will continue to age so that there's less short-term pressure around the land creditor payments over the next couple of years. I think it was Charlie's question around the cladding provision in terms of the spending. Again, that's going to be more back-end loaded. in terms of that sort of cash profile. And then, obviously, we've been bouncing around the whole land market and the competitiveness there. And, you know, every day you'll be signing off land deals, but you'll be looking at your price to TNAV in the marketplace and thinking, actually, you know, that's the cheapest land I can possibly buy. I suppose the big question is, why haven't you done any more or announced more in terms of that $200 million?

I'm going to pass over to Mike, but if I just make two comments. First of all, Clive, I think that's just harsh. I mean, we've got to start somewhere. But, no, look, I absolutely understand that, you know, if we're buying land at one and we can buy our own shares at point A. But, you know, I think we've got to recognize that we have a business to run. we can make short-term decisions that we can regret very significantly in the medium term, i.e. we haven't got sufficient land. So we're very much, as we've talked about, we're very much in the land market. I think we're definitely more cautious than we were three months ago or six months ago. And we're particularly conscious of site divisions where we are short of land. So, for example, we have a division in Southampton and That is where nutrient neutrality started as a problem and they're very short of land. So I think we've always got to have a balance that you could return everything to shareholders and just pack up. So there has to be a balance and we have to start somewhere.

Yeah, so I think we've obviously been discussing what the right quantum is to return. You're right, we had £400 million surplus at the end of June. But then we've looked forward to say, well, what do we think the position will be at the end of FY23? And there's probably three things. I mean, the land position, as David said, we're seeing a net investment in land and WIP as we get the two new divisions up to scale and, you know, Southampton and just the ongoing growth of the business to support the next few years. The second is cladding. And although it's back-end weighted, there will still be some cash that goes out in FY23. And then the third thing is just looking at the current market and where we sit with economic uncertainty is actually how strongly do we want to go at this point. So that was the reason for the 200 million. We think that will essentially clear the surplus at the end of FY23. So we will have a nil surplus in line with the operating framework. And, again, we've been reasonably cautious in the way we're structuring the program, and we'll do it over sort of £50 million tranches. And, again, really that was to make sure we've got the flexibility to respond if anything significant happens in the market. So, you know, I think the way I look at it is this is a one-off announcement of 200. We're not announcing a sort of ongoing annual program of 200. But the board talks about this a lot and we'll keep it under review as we go forward. And if for some reason we decide to dial back on land, then clearly we would probably have another look at the position.

just as a follow-up i mean obviously you've got the decreasing dividend cover strategy in place what was there a debate on the board as to whether you just freeze that at the current level and you use the extra cash to to increase that that 200 number well i think we i mean we just announced the change in policy at the half year so i don't think it would have been right to change that so quickly um and we're committed to the two times cover for fy 23

And we've said that we'd go beyond that in FY24. But again, you know, the board does touch on this regularly through the year. So it's something that will be an ongoing conversation. But we've got absolutely no plans at this point to change the cover policy that we set out as are.

Three if I may. The first one just in terms of the fire safety remediation costs. One of your peers indicated that the developer's pledge and the wording of it actually would increase potentially the cost by 10 to 20%. I wonder if you can just confirm whether or not you believe that to be the case or whether or not you sit by the provision. Second of all, one for Mike, actually, just tying together the land spend, it was just over a billion in the year that's just gone. That was a 300 million overinvestment, if we phrase it that way, in land. You're talking about 1.2 billion going in this year, but at replacement levels. So can you just sort of, you know... Is it about the cost of the land? Is it about the deferred payments? But how do we tie those to a circular square on that one? And then lastly, there's a huge amount of experience sitting in front of us in the housing market, but particularly Stephen has, I'm not saying old Stephen, but a long, long experience within house building. I wonder if I can, without you looking at David and without David stopping you, I wonder if I can get your view on what you think the cycle will look like. Do you think the cycle we're going into will look like the 2007 cycle, the 1980 cycle, the 1970 cycle? What do you think it will look like?

Yeah, I'm not sure why you stopped at the 70s. Yeah, okay, well, I might let Stephen answer that, and I might not. No, of course Stephen will answer that. Look, just in terms of the pledge, I'm not exactly sure the point, but I'm sort of guessing that the point is to do with whether you do the remediation yourself, or whether the remediation is done by the freeholder and the management company. So that is a point of VAT and whether the VAT is recoverable. And I think there's got to be a balance in terms of how that's approached because some of the buildings are very advanced with their plans and therefore effectively the freeholder and the management company are going to do it themselves. And where the buildings are not advanced through the plans, then we certainly have an intention to get involved. Not really to save the money, but more because we feel that we can deliver the service and deliver the right solution. So there's always going to be a mix and match. I don't think that the pledge or the legal agreement that is being proposed to replace the pledge will force people down one route or another. I think it's a building by building analysis that needs to take place. The only other thing I would say in relation to the costs are simply, you know, we factored in lots of contingency and we factored in inflation. So therefore there's always going to be a question mark about have you factored in enough contingency and enough inflation. But the provision was made relatively recently and we've seen nothing that can make us change our mind in terms of the provision. So I'm going to pass to Stephen to talk about the experience of the house builders. But I would just add one point before and then after Stephen's finished, Mike will pick up about land spend. But I would just say in terms of my experience, I only have one decade, but just on my experience, I think the industry is in a fundamentally different position to the way the industry was in 2008. And I think the reality in 2008, we as a company were very indebted. So we had an average net debt in 2009, bank debt of around 1.7 billion, and we were running a land creditor position that was around 500 million. So we had about 2.2 billion of indebtedness. So the difficulty for us, which wasn't the same for all the house builders, but for us and, say, Taylor Winfrey's examples, is that right from the get-go, we were running for cash because we had to pay down the bank debt. And obviously, eventually, that ended up with our placing in the rights issue. And I think you can look at other companies. I hate to pick out my peers in a positive way, but you can look at other companies like Bellway, who I think did a small placing, but carried on paying a dividend and, you know, so on. So I think the industry generally, from a financial perspective, is in a fundamentally different position.

Okay, yeah, thanks for this. I have to say, I can't think... I wasn't really prepared for that question. I hadn't thought about it from you. But it's a good question and to put things right, Linz, I wasn't here in the 70s. But thinking of the time, obviously my time in Paris, over 40 years, I've been through a lot of these potential downturns, recessions, financial crisis, the Gulf War I, the Gulf War II. We had a situation where the mortgage rate overnight went from 11.75% to 15%. So when we're talking about mortgage rates today, 4%, 5%, compared to where we were in the early 90s when it went to 15%, it's pretty soft. But when you look at the business where we are today, And I think everyone seems to confuse a recession with the financial crisis in 2008-9, where it was a totally different scenario because our buyers couldn't achieve funding at any cost. Loans and value ratios weren't there. But I think also when you look at the business in 2007-8, it was a totally different position, not only from a funding point of view, but the type of product we were building. So we've been in a situation where government PPG3, you may recall, we're building lots of high-rise apartments in Leeds and Manchester and Birmingham for the buy-to-let purchasers. And some of those purchasers were with these together-type mortgages with 120% mortgage. I think the business has been running the last 10, 15 years with that in mind. And the type of land we've bought... is as I was saying in my presentation, it's high quality land. 83% of our products is housing, standard product, low-rise housing, family housing, where there's a massive demand for that type of accommodation. So whatever we... Whatever turns out, we've got a fantastic sales team. We're well able to pull lots of levers to drive whatever result we need to do. We've got lots of dials we can turn up in the organization to drive the performance of the organization to where we want it to go. So it doesn't bother me, quite honestly, what we're looking at. We can work through it.

Glenn, you don't remember the 1990s, do you? Right, so we need to get back to something about land spending.

So land spend, so a couple of things really. So one is around a quarter of that spend is locked in already in terms of... payment commitments on the land creditor book so that's in there. I think we've moved to looking at replacement units this year just to give us the flexibility to change that as we go through the year depending on what happens to output and so on. And clearly that gives us more flexibility. Now in terms of actually getting to the 1.2 billion number, first of all there has been an increase in the cost of plots that we've approved. And we've set that out on slide 11. And really that's a function of, you know, the mix of sites we're bringing in, the quality of sites and the proportion that are coming through as higher quality sites. And also mixes in, you know, we've got more land this year through server sites and that's probably going to carry on into next year. The strength of our balance sheet really is an advantage for us and that's why we're going to around 1.2 billion because actually sometimes we can drive better pricing with landowners by offering to pay in cash rather than deferring terms on the land creditor. So that's also a factor where we want to use the strength of the balance sheet in our negotiating position to make sure that we're getting the best deal from landowners. But you know overall I think the key driver in moving to the replacement policy is to give us flexibility to move it around depending on what happens during the year.

Yeah of course, yes.

The question from the phone line comes in from the line of Andy Murphy calling from Edison Research. Please go ahead.

Thank you. Morning, David, Mike, Steven. I had a few questions, but in such a long session, most of them have been answered. But one question I did want to just bowl at you was around COVID. I was just wondering what level of sort of legacy costs operationally you're seeing staying into clear waters as far as that kind of issue is concerned. And secondly, around the same sort of subject, obviously during the lockdown, there's increased demand for things like garden offices. Is that completely reversed and evaporated now?

Andy, hi, good morning. I mean, look, I would say overall in terms of COVID costs, In terms of operational costs, I would say that there is just very, very limited cost related to that. I mean, most of our COVID protocols as such and screens and so on have been removed and put into storage and hopefully won't need to be used again. So I think the reality in the context of the overall business, those costs are very, very limited. I think in terms of trends... And again, something that we're seeing, but it's been well documented, is perhaps that there's been some reversal in terms of what was seen to be an exodus from London. And that's probably played out more in the rental market than it has done necessarily in the new build market. But I think that's certainly been a factor. Okay, great. Thanks very much. I mean, it has been really nice to be here in person, apart from all the questions. So, yeah, but if anyone's got anything else they want to ask us, I mean, we're obviously here, so we're happy to have a talk at the end as necessary. So thank you very much, everyone.