Restructure aims to shift company's focus to partnerships housing
As part of its restructuring plans, UK housebuilder Vistry Group will slash 100s of jobs, opting to focus on its affordable homes division.
The group is now preparing to cut around 200 jobs as a result of a merger of two divisions – partnerships and housebuilding – amid weaker demand in the housing market.
The restructure, originally announced in September, will affect the number of employees in five of its regional business units, according to a Bloomberg report.
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet"><p lang="en" dir="ltr">Vistry Group will cut hundreds of jobs as part of the housebuilder’s plan to solely focus on building homes for affordable housing providers and rental landlords in the UK <a href="https://t.co/zEyaQta0Kb">https://t.co/zEyaQta0Kb</a></p>— Bloomberg (@business) <a href="https://twitter.com/business/status/1716358819888943504?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">October 23, 2023</a></blockquote> <script async src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>
Like fellow housebuilders Persimmon and Bellway, Vistry reported a decrease in private sales during the summer months amid a housing market slowdown as a result of higher mortgage costs and rising inflation.
Vistry said it will focus on social housing partnerships as the higher rates have mainly affected its private sales arm. The company expects annualised cost savings of around £25 million from the integration of partnerships and housebuilding. It had been expanding its partnerships business following the acquisition of affordable housing specialist Countryside last year.
“The integration of Countryside has progressed well in the first half, firmly establishing Vistry as the leading provider of affordable mixed tenure housing in the UK,” Greg Fitzgerald (pictured), chief executive at Vistry Group, stated in the firm’s latest half-year results and strategy update. “The group delivered a robust half-year performance despite the challenging macro-economic conditions with partnerships continuing to see good demand, demonstrating its market resilience.
“The scale of the social need for affordable mixed tenure housing across the country continues to increase, and it is clear that Vistry is uniquely positioned as the leader in partnerships housing.
“In this context and following our annual review of the group’s strategy, we have concluded that focusing the group’s operations fully on partnerships by merging our housebuilding operations with our partnerships business, best enables sustained growth in housing output, provides greater benefits to our partners, while maximising value and long term returns for shareholders.”
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