Taylor Wimpey plc

Good morning, everyone, and thank you for joining Chris and I this morning. You'll have seen the statement, which is pretty straightforward. There are no surprises. We are reiterating the full year UK completions and group operating profit guidance we provided in our prelims in February. Clearly, we are alive to the recent volatility in global markets. However, our customers have remained resilient and our sales performance has continued as anticipated. Mortgage rates have ticked down and mortgage product availability remains good. Our sales teams have continued to work hard to support our customers through their buying journey, drawing on the high quality and location of our products, with incentives remaining a key feature in the new homes market. We continue to see better price opportunity in the north and more challenging conditions in the south, owing to the more stretching affordability. But overall, we continue to see the flat underlying year-on-year pricing we noted at the time of our full year announcement. The cancellation rate of 16% is robust, but does reflect challenges being experienced by some first-time buyers following the stamp duty changes. Overall, we are where we expected to be at this point in the year, with a year-to-date sales rate, net cancellations of 0.77, so very much in line with our expectations. I know you'll be interested in how the land and planning backdrop is evolving. We've seen progress on some sites that would have taken longer, I believe, before the MPPF changes, and we look forward to additional impetus and decision-making when the Planning and Infrastructure Bill is passed into law. So whilst still early and we didn't expect planning to be fixed overnight, we have been very pleased to see the recent planning changes which we believe are capable of delivering a step change in planning outcomes. That said, there is a need for increased resources across local planning authorities and for there to be a real focus on the implementation phase now to drive meaningful and consistent outcomes. As for our own position, as I've noted previously, we are in an excellent place with a significant number of applications in the system, more in preparation, that will help support local authorities to meet their housing targets. And given our strong position, we can continue to be selective and opportunistic in the land market. Outlet openings have been in line with our plans. We are currently operating from 201, which is as we expected. and we operate from an average of 208 outlets during the period. Our plans are to open more outlets this year than last year, way towards the end of the year, positioning us well for sustained growth. So, full year 2025 guidance is unchanged. We expect to deliver between 10,400 and 10,800 UK completions, consistent with what we told you at the full year. As we also flagged, first half group operating margin will be lower than underlying margin in half one 2024, which was 11%, excluding high margin land sales. This is due to the impact of underlying pricing in the order book at the start of this year, which was around 0.5% lower year on year, flowing through to completions in the period, and the return of a low level of bill cost inflation. We are pleased to be able to pay a reliable dividend through our differentiated ordinary dividend policy, and as previously announced, we will pay a 2024 final ordinary dividend of 4.66 pence per share in May, subject to shareholder approval at today's AGM. So in conclusion, current trading has remained resilient. We expect to deliver growth this year, and we remain confident in the medium to long-term characteristics of the UK housing market. There's a significant underlying demand for new homes and our actions over the cycle mean that we are well placed with an optimised structure and teams, strong land bank and balance sheet and consistent strategy to deliver sustained growth. So happy to take questions now. Thank you.

Thank you. If you wish to ask a question, please press star followed by one on your telephone keypad now. If for any reason you want to remove your question from the queue, please press star followed by two. When preparing to ask your question, please ensure your device is unmuted locally. Our first question comes from Will Jones from Redburn Atlantic. Your line is now open. Please go ahead.

Thanks. Morning. I might try three if I could. First, around trading, we can see that the sales rate is pretty robust for the year to date, but just wondering when buyers kind of digest the latest global headlines and whether you've seen any change in the lead indicators you track, such as website inquiries, appointment bookings, and the like. Second was on outlets. You've guided some openings up year on year, which is still the case. How about closings? Do you have any view there? I guess put differently, can we expect you to exit the outlets higher at the end of December compared to start of year? And the last was around the building safety levy. We've had more detail on that since you last spoke. Just wondering on your interpretation of that and when you might think it could start impacting the P&L.