Good morning, all. Thank you very much for coming this morning, and welcome to the 2023 financial year-end results for Watkin Jones. For those that don't know me, I'm Alex Pease. I'm the Chief Executive Officer for Watkin Jones, and I'll be joined in the presentation this morning by our CFO, Sarah Sergeant. The agenda for this morning will begin with a short overview from myself, reflecting on the last year, before looking at some of the key focus areas for the business as we move forward. Sarah will then take you through the FY 2023 financial performance and the outlook for FY 2024, and also touch on our progress with ESG and our Future Foundations program. I will provide an update on the market and the robust fundamentals supporting the sectors we operate.
I will then take some time to review some of the areas and opportunities where we believe we can broaden our resilience, adaptability, and earning potential as a business. The presentation should take about 40 minutes, and we'll then have time for Q&A of about 20 minutes, and I, I've been asked to note, if you can limit your questions to two at any one time, you can always come back for more. You know who I'm talking about, the people who tend to... Okay, so really starting with the overview. 2023 represented an extremely challenging year for both the wider economy, U.K. real estate generally, and the Watkin Jones business.
Significant headwinds disrupted many areas of our operations, with the impacts of inflation still pertaining and disrupting bill costs and supply chains, and the higher interest rate environment driving debt and gilt rates and causing dislocation of liquidity in investment markets. The business was able to marginally increase its revenues in the year to GBP 413 million. However, operating profit was severely curtailed at a just over break-even position on an adjusted basis. In the year, we also took an additional provision of GBP 35 million associated with building safety, and Sarah will touch on this in more depth later on in the presentation. However, FY 2023 was also a year where the business has continued to demonstrate its resilience and agility. At the close of the year, we were able to report a positive gross cash position of GBP 72 million and net cash of GBP 44 million.
A capital-light business model continues to provide us with low debt and good visibility of earnings, with over GBP 500 million of forward sold revenue secured over the next three years, GBP 3 million of which will come through in FY 2024, covering overhead costs for the year. The business has continued to deliver operationally, practically completing five assets across 2023, and also achieving investment sales across all of our specialist sectors. With the wider macroeconomic disruption, largely outside of our control, we have had an absolute focus on the business itself, looking to make sure we are fit and well positioned to capitalize as market cycle conditions rebalance. We've been on the front foot, ensuring that our organizational structure and staffing are lean and efficient without inhibiting growth potential.
On the flip side, we are also ensuring we have the right incentivization strategies in place to retain and motivate our staff. We've worked hard in actively managing our existing pipeline, looking to improve viability through design efficiencies, increasing the scale and massing of our developments, and through the re-negotiation of some of our existing contracts. We remain proactive in the land market and are beginning to see more value and opportunity emerging as our forecast lag from investment markets starts to filter through. We are also beginning to recognize benefits of a series of operational initiatives, including our centralized procurement strategy, where we've agreed over 40 new partnership framework agreements in the last 12 months alone, and also undertaken considerable rationalization of our supply chain.
We have now launched and implemented a new design standardization across all of our product lines, looking to enhance our build and material cost efficiency. Since my appointment, I've had the opportunity to take stock of the business, the markets we operate in, and where we see the opportunities for Watkin Jones going forward. My first reflection really focuses on the strength of Watkin Jones as a business. A highly challenged market has not diluted our market-leading position, nor does it dilute our core strengths, expertise, and differentiators as a business. Watkin Jones offers what our competitors cannot: a true, vertically integrated business, which has deep expertise and knowledge, not just across the residential sectors, but across the whole development cycle. The ability to originate and acquire sites, navigate and unpick planning potential, design and deliver buildings, operate and create communities, and transact and partner with institutional capital.
This enables us to unlock value at every single stage and pivot and adapt the business to react to changing market circumstances. Over the next 12 months, I believe some of the most important factors in the market will be, firstly, that ability to partner with capital, to create deals in an evolving market where flexibility, creativity, and track record are key. I don't think there's anyone operating in our space which has got that sort of enviable track record of circa GBP 3 billion of transactions since 2016 with institutional counterparties, nor the repeat business of circa 87%. You know, I think that really does set us apart. Secondly, the ability to deliver and de-risk construction for investors.
I really think this is crucial in an environment where third-party contracting has been put under severe strain, and appetite for direct development exposure for investors is absolutely on the decline. Lastly, an absolute knowledge of the customer and product, how to differentiate yourself in the market, and how to maximize your asset's performance. I think it's this alignment with our business's core strengths, which sets the platform for us for a positive look forward to the market. Of course, the wider operational market has a significant part to play in a positive, medium, and long-term outlook. The residential for rent markets of PBSA and build to rent have shown exceptional performance through the challenged economic environment of the last 18 months.
In the market review, I will talk through how this performance fuels confidence in investment recovery, of which there are some early signs of liquidity returning to the market. We have confidence in the operational strengths of the business. The continuing supply-demand imbalances and the positive sector performance will continue to fuel this investor demand and forward fund capital-light model going forwards. However, we are also looking at potential opportunities to maximize our expertise and knowledge, and broaden our potential income streams, and further resilience and adaptability to the business. I will talk through later some of the near-term strategies of development partnerships and Refresh redevelopments, and also touch on some potential longer-term options to add incremental asset management benefits and fee income to the business. I'm now going to hand over to Sarah for the financial summary.
Thank you, Alex, and good morning, everyone. I would like to take you through our financial highlights for FY 2023, review our market guidance for FY 2024, and then consider what an illustrative recovery profile of the business could look like. I'm pleased to report that our overall results are in line with our October trading update. We've reported strong revenue of GBP 413 million, which includes the forward sale of our PBSA scheme in Bristol and our BTR scheme at Titanic Quarter in Belfast. Importantly, this was a small increase on FY 2022. Our gross profit was GBP 40 million, compared to GBP 68 million in the prior year. The decline was predominantly due to low levels of forward sale activity, additional build costs at our site in Exeter, where the main contractor went into liquidation, and some acceleration costs for schemes which we completed in the summer.
Gross margin was at 10%, compared to 17% in the prior year. We took decisive action during the year and reviewed the balance sheet with the overall aim of recycling cash back into the business. We disposed of three non-core PRS assets. This recycled GBP 11 million cash, but crystallized a book loss of GBP 4.6 million. We also exercised discipline over our land bank and pipeline. We reassessed the carrying value of certain non-core land bank assets and pipeline WIP balances, resulting in impairment of GBP 5.5 million. Subsequent to the year-end, we've realized cash of over GBP 1.5 million from disposing of some of these non-core assets, and we continue to work through further opportunities. Furthermore, as Alex has alluded to, we faced into the challenging market by carrying out two overhead efficiency exercises, which realized run rate savings of circa GBP 4 million.
Adjusting operating profit for the year is at break even, although importantly, you can see here that we achieved a core trading profit of GBP 10 million before the land impairment and book loss. This waterfall slide reconciles our previous full year guidance, illustrated by the block on the left-hand side, to the final position for FY 2023. Overall, seven interest rate increases over the year and the wider macroeconomic picture have effectively curtailed the forward fund market, with only a smaller opening in the early summer, when we managed to transact on two schemes. The most significant movement, therefore, has been a loss of gross margin from the development pipeline. Of the significant chunk of loss margin, 40% of it will potentially move into 2024 with the schemes we have in the market, and 30% will move into 2025.
The remaining 30% of it has been lost due to changes in pricing and some developments where we've not pursued due to lack of viability. The other block set out the key movements, which I've already discussed, and you can see the benefit from the cost efficiencies that we've implemented. So overall, while this results in a minimal profit for FY 2023, the actions we've taken serve to set the business up well for the future. From a cash flow perspective, we've had an operating cash outflow of GBP 32 million, predominantly reflecting investment in new land sites and spend on our remedial works. Importantly, borrowings have remained flat year-over-year. With gross cash of GBP 72 million and the headroom we have on our RCF and our overdraft, we have cash and available facilities of GBP 104 million.
We recently extended our RCF with HSBC to November 2025, to allow the debt and forward sale markets to stabilize, given the current volatility. Again, we've been financially prudent, taking the decision to reduce the facility to GBP 50 million from GBP 100 million. The GBP 100 million was taken out as security at the start of COVID, and we simply have not used it. Our average drawdown over the past three years has been GBP 28 million. We realized a significant saving on our non-utilization fee. From a dividend perspective, you can see here the dividends we paid in the year. The board has made the decision not to recommend a final dividend in respect of FY 2023, given the uncertain market backdrop. But we remain committed to the progressive dividend policy as earnings recover.
We've maintained a strong cash position since the half year, despite the challenging market conditions and delays in our anticipated forward sales. This slide bridges from the half year to the full year gross cash position, and you can see the significant movement of investment in the land of GBP 11 million for two student schemes in the south, where we've received planning consent. We've carried out some enabling works on schemes we have in the market to ensure that build programs are maintained, including demolition on one site, to reduce holding costs, and the cash proceeds of GBP 37 million from the two forward sales we completed during the year, as well as the PRS properties referred to previously. Now, moving on to the balance sheet. Land and WIP has decreased as a result of the disposals and impairments that we have taken.
While there's been some buildup in contract assets, evidenced in the increase in receivables, this is predominantly due to increased contributions from the two BTR schemes and one student scheme that were physically complete in H1 2024. These will unwind in H1 on completion and receipt of the associated bullet payments. However, the key movement in the balance sheet is the additional provision of GBP 35 million we've taken for building safety, offset by the spend on this during the year. Our net provision is now GBP 55 million. This is made up of a gross provision of GBP 66 million, offset by client contributions of GBP 11 million, which we've been successful in agreeing to mitigate this cost. So we've recognized a further and exceptional provision of GBP 35 million for building safety on legacy properties.
This has been recognized as a result of the introduction of secondary legislation during the year, during the year, and evolution of government initiatives. We've also experienced change in scope and cost estimates following intrusive surveys and fire safety reports on the properties which were included in the provision last year. Finally, we've continued to negotiate with property owners and have agreed a level of settlement contributions on a number of properties. This provision contains an appropriate level of contingency. We are, however, continuing to explore additional recoveries from down the supply chain, but obviously, we can't recognize those at the moment. The net provision covers 23 properties, of which four have been added during the year. We estimate that this will be spent over the next five years.
This next slide sets out our movement in our NAV since the prior year and the half year. You can see here, the key reasons behind the decrease are this additional provision and the impairment and book loss we've realized. There have been no other fundamental movements, and we've set out a more detailed NAV breakdown in the appendix to the pack. So I'll now move on to operating profit outlook for FY 2024, and the key point here is there's no change to our previous guidance of operating profit between GBP 15 million and GBP 20 million. This slide demonstrates that we have positive potential operating profit without doing any forward sales.
This is made up as follows: our forward sold revenue, which is contractually secure, of circa GBP 300 million at an approximately 10% gross margin, the gross margin contribution from our Fresh business, and offset by our overheads. The operating profit to be secured, which is illustrated by the shaded red box, can be made up from a combination of the four sites we have in planning, which are currently being marketed. One of these is well progressed in legals, as well as further secured sites, which we're progressing with planning for potential forward sale in the second half. However, of course, we do need to be cautious and acknowledge further market pressures as we look forwards. Looking forward, this slide gives guidance to our half-year secured cash position.
The key point here is we have a significant unwind of working capital in the form of final bullet payments for the schemes that we will have completed in Q1 and Q2. These amount to circa GBP 25 million-GBP 30 million, and this, combined with minimal working capital outflow on the live schemes, will give us a strong, secured cash position for the end of March, before any forward sales or land acquisitions. So how do we see the business recovering over the next three years? Well, we've got strong confidence in the rebuild to good levels of revenue and profitability. This slide shows an illustrative recovery profile for the business. If the market recovery meets our expectations, we have the building blocks for a circa GBP 500 million revenue business at 12% gross margin in FY 2026.
This is anchored on our level of forward sold revenue of GBP 500 million, which is shown here in the gray boxes, to be recognized in over the next 3 years, and the GBP 300 million of schemes that we have in the market. We have a further GBP 700 million of revenue from schemes which are secured, and we're working through planning, and we're currently looking to secure schemes worth GBP 400 million. These are currently under offer or in legals. There is still some drag on margin from the schemes we've sold in the last 18 months, and this will continue to impact through to FY 2026. But the margin on new assets will blend back to a more normalized position, giving us a blended 12% in FY 2026. Sorry, this slide just represents our PBSA and build to rent and affordable homes pipeline.
For modeling purposes, you'll need to include the additional gross margin from Fresh. However, of course, the shape of this recovery is predicated on the recovery of the market, which there are now early supportive signs, and Alex will cover this in more detail later. We'll now turn to look at Fresh. We continue to view Fresh, our accommodation management business, as a key differentiator and part of our end-to-end proposition. The performance of Fresh in FY 2023 was solid. Although there was some impact as expected growth didn't materialize due to wider economic factors, the business experienced strong retention, and this resulted in units under management being relatively flat on the prior year. The operational performance was excellent, with an occupation level above 97% and rental growth on average at 7%.
Our focus on the resident experience remains paramount, with our wellbeing program a fundamental part of our offer. We achieved a student Net Promoter Score of +35, and the business has been voted best private housing provider for the third year in a row by the Global Student Living Index and rated as a platinum provider. Looking ahead, we have a pipeline of 7,000 beds, a blend of takeovers and new builds. As with Watkin Jones, we're also looking at ways to enhance the revenue from Fresh. For example, how services can be extended around the management model. These include design advisory, lifecycle services, and then looking at a white label offer. Finally, we're also looking at innovation across the business.
For example, dynamic pricing, which we've seen can lead to a 20% rental growth, and the use of AI to support our booking and marketing. This will ensure we achieve high listings and high conversion rates and will make efficiencies for Fresh and for our clients alike. And finally, we've continued to make great progress across the three pillars of our ESG strategy: people, places, planet. Our health and safety performance has been excellent, with an incident rate at 4.9% of the national average. All of our sites submitted in the year for planning have been established as BREEAM Excellent, and we diverted over 97% of waste away from landfill, which is ahead of our 2025 target. And looking forward to 2024, working to review lower carbon products in conjunction with our supply chain.
For example, window frames, which are made from 75% recycled materials and blended concrete. If you look closely at that bottom right-hand corner, you'll see Alex and I leading a team of 30 Watkin Jones employees over a very muddy, Tough Mudder course back in September. I will now hand back to Alex to cover the market opportunity in more detail.
Thank you, Sarah. Okay, so coming now to the market. The occupational markets across both PBSA and build to rent have been exceptional performers, demonstrating the resilience and countercyclical characteristics of the sectors. There is a very clear logic and evidential pathway which flows from existing supply-demand imbalances through to the end investment drivers. On the demand side, student numbers have continued to grow, both domestically and internationally, whilst build to rent demand is being fueled by growing populations, shrinking household sizes, and changing lifestyle habits. Over recent years, supply chains have become increasingly constrained, and they have not kept up with demand. This is due to a range of market challenges, including the volatile economic backdrop, resulting in viability hurdles, as well as the continued travails and inefficiencies of the U.K. planning system.
These imbalances and shortfalls have driven very strong occupancy and rental growth, rental growth levels across both sectors. The operational performance has helped support asset and sector returns. Relative to other real estate, real estate sectors, residential has performed very well on a sort of volatility quotient and has shown much better, total asset returns across the board. This performance, in turn, continues to attract investors to the sector, who, over the last six years, there's been a trending upwards in terms of allocations being put across to U.K. residential for rent....
The combination, we believe, is strong support for forward funding remaining the key conduit for investors into U.K. residential for the foreseeable future, driven by the lack of existing stock and the failure to keep up with demand, the ever-increasing focus on building quality, safety and ESG, and by the challenging development backdrop, which has deterred some competitors, but in particular has led to some investors rowing back from their own development aspirations. The investment market in the U.K. has clearly been impacted by the volatility in the wider economic environment and the increased interest and gilt rates. However, the market is not binary, and despite these headwinds, transactional activity has continued, albeit on a stop-start basis, as economic windows have allowed. There were circa GBP 6 billion of sales across PBSA and build to rent in 2023, with quarter levels only moderately below the five-year average.
To put it into context, this compares 2022 transaction levels which was just short of GBP 12 billion, so it's a significant impact in the year. Watkin Jones has been able to take advantage of the pockets of liquidity in the year, transacting in excess of GBP 250 million across all of our principal sectors. As inflation has moderated, there is growing confidence that volatility is subsiding and interest rates will trend downwards in 2024, and this is beginning to fuel an emerging confidence liquidity will return. Q4 recorded transactions in excess of GBP 1 billion, albeit GBP 700 million of these were operational assets. I think what's also positive, in recent weeks, there have been announced a number of new equity entrants to the market. This is always a good read-through, and you've seen Aviva entering the market, purchasing the Curlew portfolio.
Long Harbour, with Cadillac Fairview, have announced aspiration for a 10,000 student bed platform. So when good quality capital is starting to announce, I think that is a good read-through. Certainly, in our own experience with our investor chain, you know, we are getting a good pick-up in conversations going forward in January. In order to sort of help illustrate the operational model, the scale of projects we undertake, and the capabilities of Watkin Jones, I'll briefly run through two case studies of deals transacted in FY 2023. The first is Loft Lines in Titanic Quarter, Belfast, a major urban regeneration project of 700+ residential units and the first build to rent scheme in Northern Ireland.
Needing to prove concepts for build to rent in Belfast necessitated an innovative JV partnership approach on a subject to planning and subject to funding basis to ensure alignment between the parties and to maximize the potential for the site. The planning for large scale and mixed tenure regeneration creates additional challenges. However, the team were able to successfully navigate the multiple stakeholders and significant public and political interest to achieve a fantastic consent. I think the transaction really reflects the strengths of Watkin Jones' track record and partnership capabilities, attracting high quality investors, such as Legal & General, to a new city and a new market, but also managing You know, our management strengths, balancing those multiple parties' ambitions in what was a tough economic backdrop. Metalworks represents another regeneration scheme, this time an 800-bed PBSA scheme in Bristol.
Again, this case study really underlines the adaptability and partnership credentials of Watkin Jones. The development was impacted by the rapid deterioration in liquidity and pricing sentiment as markets changed in late 2022. Watkin Jones were, in part, able to mitigate these viability challenges in three clear steps. Firstly, strong interactions with the Bristol planners. This enabled us to effectively achieve design efficiencies and savings across the scheme. The second was our university relationship and track record. This helped us successfully renegotiate a regear of the existing 15-year lease we had in place and enabled us to enhance the viability of the scheme. And third, again, investor partnership. An established investment partner in KKR contributed to an exceptional transaction, executed in extremely tight timeframes of only 10 working days in a very brief period of relative economic stability.
Moving to the land and planning side of the business, we're now seeing more pronounced land value impacts from the squeeze on investment transactional activity and pricing. Both land transaction volumes and urban land values were down across the U.K. over the last 12 months, and we are now seeing increased opportunity and viability options for us in our approach to land. Planning continues to be a political football, with plenty of rhetoric on ways to simplify and make the system more efficient, but to date, it's very little action. The barriers to planning remain high, but Watkin Jones' model continues to align well with brownfield and urban regeneration policies. Our specialist team and extremely strong planning track record mean we see this as a continued opportunity to outperform.
We have remained very proactive and innovative in the land market, and since the year-end, we've exchanged on one new PBSA site and are now under offer on three further opportunities with a net development value in excess of GBP 500 million. The dynamics and business attributes we have reviewed provide continued confidence of the ongoing attractiveness of the sectors we operate, and the demand and need for forward fund transaction structures through the medium and long term. Nevertheless, it's a logical juncture for the business to take stock, review, and assess whether there are areas where we can enhance the business from both a resilience perspective, but also the potential to broaden our earnings base.
With comprehensive knowledge and expertise existing within Watkin Jones, across all facets of that development cycle, we believe there's the opportunity to expand the range of income sources we have, and help provide a smoother underpin of revenue and profits going forward. We have spoken previously of our investment and partnership credentials. However, to me, it is the depth of our other skill sets across the business, which offer us that differentiation and adaptability. Our in-house delivery gives us a competitive advantage as a group, providing us with speed and mobilization, buying power, and additional margin contribution, as well as a control and consistency of offering and product. Importantly, it also allows us to flex strategy and entertain development partnerships, prospects, and other initiatives with our investor clients.
The centralized pre-construction and procurement functions within the business, again, provide the ability to move efficiently from development through to delivery, but also give us the tools to manage third-party contracts and subcontracts, as well as enhancing our outturn cost performance through supply chain management and product design evolution. Our building improvement teams have performed an incredibly important role for the business, navigating the evolving building safety landscape. We now believe we have the chance to create an opportunity out of a challenge, and utilize our specialist and scarce skill sets as a key component of a refresh, redevelopment program. Finally, with Fresh, we're able to provide the business and our clients with in-depth customer and product insight and analytics, allowing us to offer advice and services on repositioning, branding, and operations, and completing our end-to-end offering.
What this diagram is is really attempting to show, you know, to our minds, Watkin Jones currently creates the vast majority of our revenues for our typical planning, development, and forward fund business, and also through the property management fees generated through Fresh. The model has clear strengths and has proved highly successful. However, we believe there are additional options available, and what we'll do is we'll work round the wheel to really highlight some of those near-term diversifications, and then perhaps look at some of the longer-term options. In the near term, we believe there is potential to provide some diversification of earnings while extracting more value from our existing in-house functions. Branching into some tangential areas, providing greater spectrum and granularity of revenues, but also improving the speed of revenue recognition through leveraging of our existing skill sets into adjacent and complementary strategies.
So these include strategic development partnerships and refresh. Development partnerships are something the group has undertaken before on an ad hoc basis. In effect, it is a partnership arrangement between Watkin Jones and our investor clients, utilizing the investor's capital and Watkin Jones' development and delivery capabilities to acquire and deliver existing consented PBSA and build to rent sites. In the current market environment, we are seeing more scope to secure good quality, consented land, and a good pool of demand from investors wanting to partner with us. As such, we believe we can approach development partnerships on a more strategic basis, as opposed to an ad hoc one. The model is enabled because of the ability to leverage Watkin Jones development and self-build skill sets and generate value where others can't.
As highlighted in the graphic, the clear advantage of this strategy is the generating of revenue and margin recognition, significantly quicker than our typical model. This is due to the removal of the sort of 12-18-month planning and sort of four to six month divestment process, which we would usually undertake. The model has the capability to deliver strong revenue and margins, while having limited balance sheet impact for Watkin Jones, and importantly, it utilizes all of our existing skill sets. We don't need to buy anything else in to achieve this. The second opportunity, Refresh, is in effect, a redevelopment, refurbishment, and repositioning initiative of existing PBSA and private rented stock. It will often be ESG or building safety lead, with key upgrade works needed to be completed, but it can also include full refurbishment and repositioning of the asset.
Watkin Jones can utilize existing teams and skill sets from Fresh market insights and analytics, our delivery team's scale, track record, and buying power, and our building improvement team's specialist expertise to provide a full holistic development service offering to our clients. We think the scale of demand is potentially significant, with a considerable, considerable proportion of the existing UK PBSA offering being of older and poorer quality stock. We also believe there is scope within the existing private rented sector assets, trying to bridge the gap to the more modern build-to-rent offerings... We believe there's limited competition on a like-for-like basis for Watkin Jones, and the wider spectrum of project types can allow scalability and more granularity to the business earnings. Alongside this, a Refresh model would also enable swifter revenue, revenue recognition, as typically, again, these projects wouldn't go through a lengthy planning and sales process.
While at an early stage, we have existing teams in place and are already in discussions with a number of our key investor client base and universities about potential projects. I think just to try and bring it to life and illustrate the concept, what we've done is we've provided a live case study on a project we're in the midst of negotiating at the moment. So here, this is an asset, 700 units, PBSA university halls of residence, and Watkin Jones represent the development and delivery partner. The project brief includes a full building safety overhaul, including recladding, fire stopping, and correction of other inherent building defects. It also encompasses an ESG target to bring the asset up to a BREEAM Excellent rating.
By refurbishment of the bedrooms, kitchens, and communal areas, the asset will be comprehensively repositioned in the market, with a strategy to enhance values to therefore cover the cost of the remedial works required. Whilst the acquisition period or negotiation period is necessarily protracted to ensure the correct scope and structure are agreed, the revenue generation is far swifter than our usual projects. Estimated revenues for this project sits at about GBP 35 million. We also have in mind, in terms of what a longer-term outlook could look like. The final 10 of the diagram highlights where, in the longer term, we could explore wider asset management roles for Watkin Jones in partnership with our investors and their capital. In a strong investment market, we believe there is significant potential to generate incremental fee income through partnership vehicles and asset management services.
Alongside this, these structures could offer Watkin Jones alternative funding solutions, fee income, and property management opportunities for Fresh, as well as the ability to share in potential future outperformance of these assets. We see this, importantly, as an extension and maximization of our existing in-house specialisms. We really view it as a chance to catalyze our existing development and operational models without cannibalizing them, and without, importantly, moving away at all from our core capital-light structure. This is really predicated on a stronger investment market, and it's something that we'd look to bring back to shareholders at the right juncture. So in summary, despite the market challenges, Watkin Jones remains an absolute market-leading business. We operate in some of the strongest performing real estate sectors, with supportive fundamentals really continuing to drive investor demand.
We have an absolute focus on our business, with proactive steps taken to drive performance and efficiency, while providing a platform for growth as markets rebase. We believe there are further avenues available to the business to broaden our earning basis and to enhance resilience and results, and we have that real specialist knowledge and depth of talent within our people in order to give us this resilience and agility to meet 2024 and beyond, with confidence. Thank you very much, and we're now gonna move to Q&A.
Thank you. Before asking your questions, can I ask everyone states their name and company please?
Glynis Johnson, Jefferies, two, and then I'll come back for more.
Okay.
First one, just in terms of the partnership vehicles, I wonder if you can just help us understand how long that commitment's gonna be. Is it that you are gonna look to do partnerships where you'll continue to use those going forward? I'm just worried, you know, is there some sort of trade-off between those partnership vehicles and your, you know, normal underlying business? Can it restrict your ability to leverage back into growth?
No, look, for me, they sit absolutely side by side. What we see this as, you know, it's not going to disrupt our usual forward fund model. Where there's opportunity to secure sites in the market, we will be doing so, but equally, it does offer that opportunity to generate revenues quicker and without risking the balance sheet. So we see it as incremental as opposed to instead of.
The second question is probably a slightly more tricky question. You've, you know, done some overhead restructuring. You're looking to save GBP 3 million, but your overheads are still quite a big number relative to your profit generation. Is there a more fundamental change that needs to happen within those overheads? Is there a need that you have to get those revenues up quicker, you know, you know, so that you don't have to take more costs out?
Yeah, I'll take that one. I mean, I think in terms of the overhead position, we've taken roughly GBP 4 million out. There's obviously some impact of inflationary increases in there. I think for overhead, it is very much a leverage piece. You know, I think when we did the overhead reduction, we were very conscious that we didn't do too much to inhibit the growth of the business, so it didn't effectively touch the divestment and the planning team and the acquisition team. That's what we need to be able to grow. There was more opportunity in some of the support areas.
So, I think it's very much, you know, it is all about leverage, it's all about getting the growth, as you say, to cover the overhead, and I think that's where we come back to the new initiatives that we are doing that will enable us to bring revenue in sooner to the business.
... Morning, guys. Colin Sheridan at Davy. Thanks for the presentation. Just a couple for me as well, if that's okay. Just starting on the near-term opportunities that you described, that is strategic developments and refresh and redevelopment as well. Wonder if you could talk a little bit about how you're thinking about or how we should think about things like hurdle rates, whether that be on margin or return on capital, with respect to the different risk profile that you pointed to, in those two sections of the business going forward.
And, just on the OpEx side, I mean, to some extent, it's a repeat of Glynis's question, but, on those newer parts of the business, I think you explained how a lot of the existing skill sets within the business overlap with these new opportunities. Wonder if you could confirm whether or not there will have to be some investment in terms of OpEx in advance of being able to mobilize any of that, or will the existing OpEx base be able to handle that as well? Thanks.
Sure. Look, I'll pick that up. In terms of, you know, both development partnerships and the Refresh model, look, we're being quite careful here not to sort of overpromise and underdeliver. We believe these really could be quite positive contributors to the Watkin Jones sort of revenues and earnings, but we want to sort of prove that concept. You know, we think it's a strong concept. I think in terms of... You're right. If you look at the risk profile of a development partnership, it is a reduced risk profile because we are not taking planning risk, and we are not taking exit risk. Therefore, you know, it goes hand in hand that there will be a slightly reduced margin.
But, you know, it's important to stress, you know, this is still, you know, a very healthy development margin. We'd anticipate sort of, you know, low middle to the double figures in sort of, you know, into that sort of 12%-15% sort of range, is where we'd be targeting from a development wrap point of view or development partnership point of view. I think it's also important to note on the Refresh model, you know, this is not a contracting exercise. This is a full development sort of offering, and as such, again, those development returns will be in that sort of, you know, 10%-12% sort of target range. You know, potentially, you could outperform that.
You know, I think this is quite a specialist area, and there's not many people doing it, and I think there's gonna be quite high demand, but I think we want to sort of set the right tone at the moment, and so it that 10%-12% is a sensible range.
Thanks.
And then in terms of sort of the overhead piece, look, again, that is one of the attractions of these. You know, at this point, we don't believe we need to sort of bolt on additional resource to fuel this. Clearly, if they're as successful as we hope that they may be, then you bolt on incremental to service that, but I think it'd be sort of in that order.
Sorry, I think from the other point, it's just from a return on capital perspective of those two new streams, very, very, very limited, if anything, needed, compared to the normal model, where there would obviously be an element of land that was sitting on a balance sheet, even if for a relatively short period of time.
Thank you. Clyde Lewis at Peel Hunt. Two for me. Just on new land, Sarah's very kindly got that 10%, 11%, 12% sort of progression coming through in terms of sort of gross margins, but obviously, that, a lot of that will reflect the margins on land you already secured. New land now, new deals that you might be considering, what sort of gross margin are you now able to achieve, given the adjustment in pricing is, given obviously where yields have gone and build costs are sort of settled down? That was the first one, and the second question was around investment committees and, you know, that sort of stop, go, sort of signal. What do you think is their biggest single block to flipping from maybe amber to, to green right now?
Sure. So look, on, on, on the land market side, as you say, we are starting to see some genuine sort of deflation on, on those land prices. It could always deflate more, but, you know, we've seen circa 10% in terms of the headline stats. That's mirroring pretty much with what we're seeing on the sort of urban regeneration sites that we're looking at. I think also importantly, it's just the quantum of opportunity that we're seeing has increased. There's less people operating in the market, so therefore, you've got more chance of securing it. Again, as you say, build cost inflation moderating and, importantly, rental growth continuing to perform, has enabled the appraisals to, you know...
It's still not easy to make things viable, but we are building much, much closer back towards that sort of traditional, sort of long, long target margin rates on that side. And sorry, what was the question is?
The other one was around investment committees.
Oh, yeah. Yes, I mean, I think on investment committees, again, if 2023 was the year where transaction teams were ready to go, maybe ICs weren't. The sort of rhetoric we're hearing is that ICs are beginning to be ready, and that's positive, clearly. I think it does depend. It's not a one-size-fits-all. It depends on what type of capital you are. So if you look at the more sort of blue chip, institutional capital, I think what they've been craving more than anything else is just stability. They want the removal of that sort of real oscillations. They want confidence that the downward trend is there to stay. You know, there is significant capital to allocate, and they just want that stability.
Clearly, they tend to benchmark against gilt rates as one of their key metrics. So I think gilts, they can execute deals under 4%. It'd be more helpful if it was sort of 3.5%, in that sort of territory. But yeah, we're certainly edging closer to where they feel able to deploy with confidence. I think on more of the private equity side, you know, again, they tend to be driven more by debt rates, et cetera. So really seeing some confidence come through that those swap rates are continuing to trend downwards. That's gonna be one of the main drivers for their point of view.
Glynis Johnson, Jefferies. Two questions, if I may.
Yeah.
In terms of slide 17, do you show the pipeline outlook? And it looks like there's one, maybe two sites where site security is subject to planning. When do we need to see that planning come through to make sure that forward sale can happen in the year? And then the second question, just in terms of land, you've just highlighted that land opportunities are starting to become more interesting. You talk about three PBSA sites being under offer. Clearly, you know, ideal world, you'd like to back to back that with the you know, the customers, you know, signing, but that doesn't always happen. So how should we think about your cash profile as we go through this for land? You've talked about the WIP coming out, but how should we think about in terms of land?
Is there a risk that actually the cash rates are actually a little bit higher as you build that pipeline up?
Yeah.
Yeah. So, I mean, coming to that question, in terms of the three assets that we allude to, actually, two of those are subject to planning and subject to funding deals. So therefore, you know, there's quite a long journey for us to go through anyway in terms of securing that planning, and it gives us the opportunity to secure it on onward sale. But then we have the additional conditionality in the contract of a funding clause. So that does give us good confidence that we're not exposing, you know, the balance sheet there. And sorry, just remind me of the first question.
First question was about the 2024 pipeline guidance, includes one or maybe two sites.
Yeah, no. Yeah, no, it's... So I think we would, I mean, yeah, we would need planning to come through in the next six months or so on that one. I think the key point, Glynis, in terms of 2024, is a minimal revenue contribution and an even more minimal profit contribution. It's more about the impact into 2025. Okay.
Anything further? No. Okay, well, look, thank you very much all for coming, this morning. Good to see you all.