Persimmon Plc

Good morning, everybody. I'm joining you today from our Newcastle office, where alongside colleagues I'll later be attending the funeral of our founder, Duncan Davidson. Of course, our thoughts are with Duncan's family and friends, but it is also a sad and poignant day for us at Persimmon, as we remember a man who taught us a lot about business and life. First and foremost, Duncan inspired many, many people. What quickly struck me at Persimmon was the genuine warmth Duncan's held in by those who knew him and worked with him. I often hear a great man and a great boss. Duncan was a visionary and an entrepreneur. I have the great honor to lead this company inheriting Duncan's great legacy while trying to build on his great insights and strong foundations. Fundamentally, Duncan knew that a great value home built by great people trusted to deliver excellence consistently would deliver for customers and for shareholders alike. I, we, try to maintain these values, his drive and vision in all we do as I hope today's results demonstrate. We're pleased with today's results as they show we've performed well in a challenging market. Across the key metrics, we can see the benefit of our investment in the business and our self-help initiatives. We've maintained a good sales rate despite a clear softening for the industry over the summer and in the run-up to the budget. Customer sentiment is more fragile So I'm delighted we've also so far maintained a sales rate ahead of last year. Initiatives such as New Build Boost, our shared equity product, have helped alongside the broader investment in sales and marketing. Forward sales are up. Both our total forward sales and the private forward sales element are up both around 15%. Pricing is robust. and we remain disciplined on incentive use running around 4% to 5%. Our build position is good. We're clearly focused on securing the year-end completions and we remain on track to deliver our guidance. Our proactive approach has helped drive further planning success. This is reflected in our growing outlet base. We continue to invest in the business to drive growth and returns. we're being presented with good land opportunities and are maintaining our discipline while growing our overall land holdings. As we look ahead, the budget is clearly a crucial moment. How any measures impact customer sentiment, including amongst institutional investors, will be crucial. Nonetheless, we're on track to deliver this year's guidance and are determined to continue to drive further growth to meet our medium-term growth ambitions. Thank you very much. I'll now open it out to any questions you might have.

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Hi, morning. Thanks. Two questions for me, please. Just wondered if you could give maybe a bit more color just on pricing and incentives, how they've kind of evolved through the autumn selling season. ASP private's up 1.5%. Is that mixed? Is there any HPI in there? And have you ticked up incentives more recently? And then second question, just on obviously Did a good job increasing site numbers. Just as you look into next year, what's the visibility like for kind of site openings, your expectation of planning for next year?