Hello and welcome to Glenveagh Interim Results 2025. My name is Laura, and I'll be your coordinator for today's event. Please note this call is being recorded, and for the duration of the call, your lines will be on listen-only mode. However, you will have the opportunity to ask questions at the end of the call. This can be done by pressing star one on your telephone keypad to register your question. I will now hand you over to your host, Stephen Garvey, CEO, to begin today's conference. Thank you.
Good morning and thank you, Laura. I am Stephen Garvey, CEO of Glenveagh . I'm joined today by our CFO, Conor Murtagh. We appreciate you joining our interim results call for the first session on the 30th of June, 2025. This morning, I'll walk you through the key highlights, the market, the policy context, and how our strategy is showing up in home building, partnerships, land, and innovation. Conor will take you through the financials and capital allocation, and I will return to the outlook and closing remarks. As always, we will leave plenty of time for your questions at the end. Let's begin on slide four, which sets out our headline numbers for the first half of the year. This period demonstrated the strength of our Building Better strategy. We set out scale delivery, deepened our partnerships with the state, and drove operational efficiency through innovation.
That is exactly what's reflected in our results. Our focus on standardization and vertical integration is now embedded across the business, making us more resilient and more efficient as we grow. The benefits of our early investment in innovation are visible in our margin profile and our ability to deliver at scale, even as the market evolves. This is also the first interim period where our partnership segment has made a material contribution to group profit. This is a real milestone for us and reflects the strength of our public-private model. We are now recognized as a partner of choice for the state with a growing pipeline and strong demand for our homes. We continue to manage our capital with discipline, optimizing our land bank and maintaining a strong balance sheet, even as we accelerated delivery.
Our buyback program continues to create value for shareholders, and we are seeing the benefits of a more efficient, more focused approach to capital deployment. We will discuss these elements in greater detail as we progress this morning. For now, I want to emphasize that the strategy we set out a few years ago is delivering for our customers, our partners, and our shareholders. Turning to slide five, let's take a moment here to consider what sets Glenveagh apart in the current environment. The need for new homes in Ireland remains acute, and government policy is more focused than ever on increasing supply. This is happening against a backdrop of continued economic strength and a supportive policy environment, so the market opportunity is clear. What gives us confidence is the way we've positioned the business to capture the opportunity.
We've built a sector-leading platform, one that's not just about scale, but about delivering high-quality homes in the right locations, supported by a uniquely integrated operating model. Our early investment in innovation and standardization is now delivering tangible benefits, making our business more resilient and more efficient as we grow. We are seeing the benefits of our deepening partnerships with the state and a hard-won reputation as a partner of choice for public housing delivery. This is supported by a disciplined approach to capital allocation and a strong balance sheet. Our focus on profitable growth, active land bank management, and ongoing investment in our supply chain is enabling us to create long-term value for the business and drive sustainable returns for our shareholders. Providing further context, slide six shows that the long-term demand outlook for housing in Ireland remains exceptionally strong.
We continue to see positive trends in income and employment, with both wages and job creation rising steadily across the economy. Alongside this, Ireland's population growth remains robust, driven by sustained net inward migration, well above the European average. Mortgage lending activity is also maintaining a healthy pace, with first-time buyers accounting for a significant share of drawdowns, supported by government schemes. The underlying drivers of demand for new homes are strengthening. Turning to slide seven, we can see in more detail how government policy and recent market initiatives are creating a genuine supportive environment for housing delivery. The National Development Plan and the Planning and Development Act 2024 are setting ambitious targets and providing significant funding alongside the infrastructure and planning certainly needed to achieve them. On the demand side, supports such as Help to Buy and the First Home Scheme continue to underpin affordability for buyers.
They both have been extended, giving buyers and developers greater confidence to plan ahead. There is also a strong policy push for modern methods of construction and using state land at scale through the Land Development Agency and local authorities. Meeting Ireland's housing needs will require more than just policy ambition. It will take sustained private sector capital, adequately zoned land, public sector resources, and critical infrastructure. The success of our partnership platform shows how public and private resources can be pooled effectively to deliver much-needed homes. We've shaped our strategy around this shift, and we are beginning to see material results, which we will talk about shortly. In the short term, the policy environment is evolving for the better, and that gives us real confidence in our ability to continue delivering at scale. Now let's dive deeper into our segments, starting with home building on slide eight.
Just a quick reminder that at the start of the year, we announced with the 2024 results that we have simplified our reporting on home building, previously suburban, and partnerships, previously urban and partnerships. This was a standout period for home building, with delivery nearly doubling year- on -year. The momentum reflects the strong demand and the benefits of our differential model and strategy. Standardization, scalable sites, and vertical integration are all coming true in our results. Excellence in our execution saw major completions at Kilmartin Grove and Herford Park, as well as major progress across a number of developments and a number of new sites starting earlier in the year. Our average selling price was elevated in the first half due to mix, but we expect that to normalize as the year progresses.
Margin expansion in home building was driven by the choices we made to invest efficiently and repeatedly. With a forward order book at around EUR 1.4 billion, we have strong visibility for the rest of the year and well into 2026. Turning to slide nine, let's talk about partnerships. For the first time, this segment made a material profit contribution, reflecting the scale and momentum in this part of the business. We now have six active sites underway, including new contributions from Moortown, New Road, the Cork Docklands, which is a development in collaboration with the Land Development Agency, alongside Ballymaistone, Oscar Traynor Road, and Foxford Barnes. This growing pipeline, underpinned by robust planning momentum and repeated demand from public sector clients, gives us strong visibility on future delivery. Moving to slide ten, we can see how our land portfolio remains a source of strength and flexibility.
The portfolio has been carefully assembled to align with our strategy. It is focused on supporting high-quality owned-door homes in the right locations, with 74% of our units in the Greater Dublin Area. We continue to maintain a strong cost discipline, with the average plot cost at EUR 32,000, and the land bank supports attractive embedded margins and capital returns. Importantly, this land bank gives us the capacity to deliver between 2,600 and 3,600 equivalent units per year through to 2030, underpinning our medium-term delivery objectives. We have also been actively managing the portfolio, with over EUR 60 million of land sales either closed or at advanced stages, ensuring we remain flexible and capital efficient as the market evolves. Finally, just a note, the recent publication of the National Planning Framework is expected to materially positively impact our strategic land bank, resulting in a lower capital deployment requirement in future land periods.
Turning to slide 11, our commitment to innovation remains a core pillar to our strategy. We continue to invest significantly in this area. Phase two of our innovation program is now underway via a EUR 25 million commitment to expand our offsite manufacturing facilities in Carlisle, including an additional facade line alongside our timber-frame platform. At the heart of this is NUA, our in-house manufacturing and innovation platform. Through NUA, we are moving beyond traditional building methods and embracing innovative lightweight alternatives, such as a new wall system, roof cladding, and floor cassettes. Our exclusive perpetual license for integrated external facades is now a key part of this, allowing us to increase pre-manufactured value and improve further efficiencies.
Offsite manufacturing and modern methods of construction are already delivering tangible improvements in cost control, build efficiency, and margin performance, all of which makes Glenveagh more resilient, more efficient, and better positioned to deliver at scale as the market evolves. With that context, I'll hand you over to Conor to talk you through the financials and the capital allocation.
Thanks, Stephen, and good morning, everyone. I'll take you through the financials for the first half of 2025, starting with the income statement, then moving to the balance sheet, land, and cash flow, and finally our capital allocation priorities. As always, we'll outline the key drivers behind the numbers and what they mean for the business. If we can turn to slide 13, as Stephen noted, the first half of 2025 marked a period of strong growth for Glenveagh. Group revenue reached EUR 342 million, up 124% on last year. This uplift reflects the momentum we've built in both home building and partnerships, with delivery volumes and onsite partnership activity both moving in our favor. Gross profit increased to approximately EUR 67 million, and our gross margin expanded to 19.5%, up 130 basis points.
This margin improvement is as a result of several years of investment in standardization, scale, and vertical integration, in addition to mix benefits. Work in progress rose to approximately EUR 347 million, which is in line with our plans to ramp up home building output and deliver under the Croí Cónaithe Scheme. Net assets finished the first half at EUR 748 million and reflect approximately EUR 35 million of capital returns in the period. Altogether, it shows we're supporting growth in a disciplined way, optimizing working capital, managing our land bank, and maintaining a strong balance sheet. Moving to the land bank slide. Apologies. Continuing on the income statement, we're seeing the benefits of delivering more homes and large repeatable sites, and our offsite manufacturing is now contributing to program certainty, quality, and cost control.
A feature of both business segments in 2025 is the completion of sites and phases where cost contingencies are unutilized, supporting margin expansion. Underlying gross margin in the home building segment, excluding non-core sales at Shrewsbury Road and land sales, was 22.8%. Nevertheless, spot home building margins in the group's medium-term delivery pipeline are approximately 21%, with site mix continuing to be a principal driver as the business monetizes its vintage land bank and scales to 2,000 units with a focus on return on capital. Gross margin in partnerships in H1 was 16.2%, ahead of target owing to site mix and unutilized contingency due to strong cost control. Similar to home building, site mix will play a significant role in future periods as the business scales up and the group completes the transition out of its remaining urban sites.
EUR 400 million in revenues remains an achievable current year and medium-term target, with visibility on replacing existing partnership sites with new wins, increasing over the period. Operating profit for the first half was EUR 42.1 million. Net finance costs were EUR 9.6 million, reflecting a higher opening debt level following last year's land acquisitions. Profit before tax was EUR 32.5 million, and earnings per share came in at EUR 0.052. Moving to the balance sheet on slide 14, focusing in on the key numbers here. Land balance, excluding development rights, was EUR 536 million, down from year end as we continue to actively manage the land bank and focus on capital efficiency. I'll come back to land on the next slide. Work in progress rose to EUR 347 million, which is in line with our plans to ramp up home building and deliver under the Croí Cónaithe Scheme.
Altogether, it shows we're supporting growth in a disciplined way, optimizing working capital, managing our land bank, and maintaining a strong balance sheet. Moving to slide 15, I touched on it briefly, and you can see how our land bank is evolving and supporting our growth agenda. The EUR 536 million land balance at June 2025 represents a peak investment level for us. From here, we're focused on reducing capital intensity, delivering units from our existing land bank, and executing targeted disposals. We remain on track to complete land sales of EUR 100 million across 2025 and 2026. More than EUR 60 million of that is already closed or at advanced stages of contract. This strategy is about prioritizing capital employed in land and focusing on sites of scale that can support delivery in both home building and partnerships.
Given the strength of the land bank, both in terms of scale and product type, i.e., owned-door homes, we can both grow the business and reduce capital deployed in land towards EUR 400 - EUR 450 million over the next number of years. Next, slide 16 shows our cash flow. Operating cash outflow was EUR 10.8 million, a material improvement from the EUR 194 million outflow in H1 last year. That is driven by higher completions, greater contribution from partnerships, and tighter working capital management. Importantly, net debt was EUR 230 million, a lower figure than this time last year, despite a materially higher starting position. Moving forward, we continue to invest selectively where returns are strongest, principally funding construction WIP, investing in innovation, and returning surplus capital to shareholders. Which brings me to slide 17, where we have our capital allocation priorities. Our medium-term visibility is as strong as it has been.
We have a clear line of sight in Munich Road, combined with land bank reduction on replenishing the partnerships pipeline and freeing up capital, while capturing manufacturing benefits that will provide a structural medium-term cost advantage. Against that backdrop, we continue to focus on four key priorities. Firstly, land. We're actively reducing our land bank, as I set out, primarily through unit delivery and targeted unit sales. Importantly, we will sustain, as Stephen mentioned, the capacity to deliver 2,600 - 3,600 units per annum. Secondly, work in progress. Investment here is supporting the planned increase in home building outputs to 1,900 units in 2027, which remains a core driver of revenue growth. Third, supply chain and innovation. We're investing in offsite manufacturing and next-generation building approaches. That includes a EUR 25 million commitment to deliver a new external facade line and facility upgrade, which will transform how we deliver homes.
Approximately EUR 10 million of spend will occur in 2025, EUR 10 million in 2026, with the balance in 2027. Finally, returning excess cash. The buyback program announced in May has been expanded from EUR 85 million to EUR 105 million. That's been made possible by strong operation performance, robust cash generation, and good visibility on land sales. To date, approximately EUR 84 million has been deployed under the current program. This disciplined, balanced approach is supporting growth, innovation, and value creation, while also maintaining a strong financial position. That's the conclusion of the financial review. Stephen, I'll hand back to you for the outlook and to close out.
Thanks, Conor. To bring it all together on slide 18, we remain fully on track to deliver full-year guidance. We are reiterating our earnings per share target of EUR 0.195 for full-year 2025, underpinned by strong operational momentum and a healthy forward order book. We expect to deliver approximately 1,500 home building units this year, with partnerships contributing around EUR 400 million in revenue. This reflects the scale and the consistency we are now achieving across both segments. On the capital side, we are making real progress in optimizing our land portfolio, with EUR 100 million of land sales targeted across 2025 and 2026. Our land bank remains a core strength, giving us the capacity to deliver between 2,600 and 3,600 units per year all the way to 2030. Notably, we're achieving this growth while reducing the net debt and returning value to shareholders by expanding our buyback program to EUR 105 million today.
To wrap things up on slides 19 and 20, we have our differential investment case. I want to conclude by emphasizing three things. Building Better Strategy set out the direction, and we are executing on it with consistency. Standardization and manufacturing are improving our cost control and speed, with benefits already visible in margin and program predictability. Partnerships are now a material first-half contributor, and our land strategy balances visibility with capital efficiency. We have strong momentum into the second half and beyond. Glenveagh is uniquely positioned with strong visibility on future delivery for the balance of this year and beyond. All of this gives us real confidence for Glenveagh's ability to deliver sustainable value well into the future. With that, I'll pass you over to Laura for any questions you may have, and thank you.
Thank you. Ladies and gentlemen, as a reminder, if you would like to ask a question, please press star one on your telephone keypad. We'll pause for a brief moment. Thank you. We will now take our first question from Colin Sheridan of Davy. Your line is open. Please go ahead.
Thank you, and thanks for the presentation, guys. Maybe starting on partnerships, maybe you could talk a little bit about what the pipeline looks at this point in time and, I guess, what the changes we're likely to see from government with additional funding and a change to housing for all. What, how you think that could evolve or how you'd like to see it evolve in the next year or so. Maybe just on build cost inflation, I mean, you've referred to the sector employment orders in the statements. Just wondering how build cost inflation has been progressing more generally and how the vertical integration in the business has been playing its part in trying to mitigate that on site. Thanks.
Thanks, Colin, and good morning. Partnerships, yes, obviously made substantial progress. I suppose it's a hard-won reputation. We've been at this for a period of time, and we're only really seeing the benefits of that flow through on the income statement now. Positively disposed to what we're seeing coming down the track. We're in negotiations on a number of new partnerships, quite substantial ones, some of them adjacent sites, some future sites that are very close to us. Proactive local authorities out there now looking at opportunities, very much looking at certain local authorities who have probably perfected the model and got it really well coming out there to a certain degree. The Land Development Agency, obviously very proactive now as well. A lot of their land is starting to come into the system. They're running a number of RFPs. We've obviously got six sites on the go.
Some of them will come to completion next year, but we're very positively disposed to being able to replace them on an ongoing basis. I think we've proven we're the delivery partner of choice out there with all government agencies at this stage. Happy to disclose that. Bill cost inflations, yeah, you're right on the sectoral employment agreement, was 3%. Labor probably makes up 50%, 55% of the delivery out there. That will inevitably be passed through. On the material side, it's pretty, pretty good. A little volatility in one or two products, but in the ether, it's probably not too bad out there. Probably happy where things are at. Somewhere between 2.5% and 3.0% is probably where we see things plateauing out for the next 12 months. We don't see anything on the horizon that makes us concerned out there.
On the manufacturing side, I think what you're really seeing from the manufacturing and innovative side is it's probably really driving that way we can deliver programs, being able to release contingency on sites. They're obviously positive to margins. It's the capability of predictability, sticking with programs, the quality of the product, all of those things are coming. We're probably now moving to phase II of the innovation side. The benefits of that and the cost that that'll bring to the table and the cost savings, it's too early to predict yet, but phase II, 2027, 2028, we really hope it'll feed into the system and we should see positive turn from that.
I think what you see in manufacturing over the next number of years is we'll be labor and labor increases as we're seeing through sectoral employment orders. We'll be less of a dial mover in that CPI number as we transition more and more to pre-manufactured value.
That makes sense. Thanks for that.
Thank you. We'll now take our next question from Shane Carberry of Goodbody, your line is open. Please go ahead.
Thank you, guys, and thanks for the presentation. Just to follow up on Colin's question, I guess, in terms of that kind of gross margin point. In terms of the standardization piece of the jigsaw, is it fair to think of that as the main contributor to the kind of underlying growth in the gross margin this year? You mentioned in the presentation about maybe the mix going forward into 2026, so if you could expand on that a little bit more, it'd be helpful. The second question is just around the medium-term targets, really. It sounds like, you know, even more confident in the medium term, maybe beyond all of our forecast horizons as well.
If you could just give me a little bit more color in terms of how your confidence has evolved, is it more the policy side improving, underlying demand getting better, or is it some of the kind of innovation that you're doing? Maybe it's a bit of all of the above.
Go ahead, go ahead.
On the gross margin side, you're right. Standardization is a lot of the benefit. It's also sites of scale, and it's also strong cost control getting to the end of sites and having contingency in place. You're seeing that particularly on the partnership side as well. There's a good strong mix effect this year, which brings us to your follow-up question around gross margin for next year. We've spoken since the start of this year about intake margins being around approximately 21% in the medium-term land bank. What you're going to see is that transition happening in 2026. You'll see margins of approximately 21% in 2026 is the way to think about it.
Just on the policy and medium to long term, positive what we said, 2027, we feel very comfortable about the 1,900 units in home building. We're positive towards the National Planning Framework. I suppose for our view, just where the policy is evolving is, you know, the government has instructed the National Planning Framework and instructed local authorities to now go out and start varying their development plans. An element of local authorities will vary their plans, but they'll also start going into their new plan phase. We see 2027 into 2028 as the period of time that, you know, about 750,000 units of zoned land will come into the system. Some of that will be our strategic land as well. I suppose that's the opportunity we're seeing coming down the track. Obviously, there'll be sites of scale.
Positive in the sense of, I suppose, you have a government who are really now on the front foot to drive their policy initiatives. They're probably seeing some challenges with the administration side not moving as fast as they'd like, but I think, yeah, they're really trying to make a difference out there. I think we're well set up that our land bank positions ourselves to 2030. We're obviously core product. 80% of our product is that owned door product. In a nice place there, but obviously we hope we can enhance that. The more the vertical integration feeds into the system, the bigger the sites become, the faster, more efficient we can deliver into the future. We're in a good place.
Really helpful. Thanks, guys.
Thanks, Shannon.
Thank you. We will now take our next question from Jonny Coubrough of Deutsche Bank. Elianis Edson, please go ahead.
Thanks for taking my question. Good morning. Could I ask on the land bank? You said in the presentation that the land bank could support up to 3,600 units a year out to 2030. What other investments would you need to make to achieve this level of output across WIP, supply chain, overheads? I think you set out some of this on slide 17, but it'd be useful just for a bit of clarification on that one. You've mentioned EUR 100 million of land site sales over two years. From there, will you be maintaining about a EUR 450 million land bank? How would you be looking to replenish that land? Are you looking at land options or other avenues? Thanks very much.
Morning, Jonny. Yeah, obviously last year was the big pivotal year. We bought 9,000 plots of land. It was a three-year supply in one hit. We got them at an attractive EUR 32,000 per plot, so we're very happy with that. We're not actively in the land market. We're always keeping an eye on it, but we're not actively investing. Probably strategic land is where we're looking at an element of because we know what will come down the track. Product that might come into the system in 2029, 2030, we're looking at those kinds of sites, but we're not making a very big investment on that. On the WIP side of it, I'll leave that. Conor, you want to go on that?
Yeah, the WIP is actually well invested. We've to obviously grow home building units from 1,500 to 1,900 over the next couple of years. At the same time, we have a number of urban schemes where we're well invested on the apartment side, which we'll be seeking to forward fund in the future. One in North County Dublin and another one in Cork. You could see maybe EUR 50 million go into WIP on a net basis there between now and 2027 or growth into 2028. We obviously have called out the office as a cash inflow, most likely in or around 2028. WIP is well invested even to support that growth that's there. On the partnership side, there's a prevalence of forward funding in that. The investment there would be minimum from where we are at the moment. Manufacturing-wise, it's the EUR 25 million, which is EUR 10 million over the balance of this year, EUR 10 million next year, and EUR 5 million in 2027. Okay.
Thanks very much. Thank you.
Thank you. Once again, as a reminder, if you would like to ask a question, please press star one on your telephone keypad. While we wait, I'm handing it over for the written question. Thank you.
We've had a question in from Glynis Johnson. She has asked regarding the admin costs for H1 2025 Watrove Step Up and what is the guidance for FY 2025 and medium term. Second, on land market, she's asked, given the competitive land market, but also the positive upside potential to your strategic land, is there scope to increase the land sales targeted? Lastly, can you elaborate on the facade production? Is this the Mauer system and how many home units would this likely cover by 2027?
I'll take one and two there. On admin cost, H1 reflects the run rate from H2 2024. Consensus is around EUR 51 million of administration costs for 2025. We're comfortable with where that is. Over the medium term, we've said we want to reduce admin costs to less than 5% of revenue and are on track to do that. The land market and potential for more land sales, what we'd say on that is we have greater certainty on the EUR 100 million of land sales than we had a number of months ago. However, the likelihood of it being materially in excess of EUR 100 million has reduced. EUR 100 million is a good number to have across 2025 and 2026. Steve, do you want to take the Mauer system?
Yes, you're right on that, Glynis. Obviously, we're the sole holder of that license in Ireland. We think it's a huge opportunity for us. The potential savings and how this can evolve is it'll make huge benefits for our prelims on site. It's a better, more attractive looking product. We've had some of the local authorities out down to look at the finished product. They're really impressed with it. The quality of it and the aesthetics of it, it's really pleasing. We are putting it into production in 2026. First homes are going out in 2027. We're going to take it on a phased basis, so probably 10% of the portfolio we'll start with. The ambition is to get it right across the portfolio by a period of time. Like we've done with all other innovation and manufacturing, we've taken a step basis to it. I suppose the real benefit is if we see success, we can start factoring that into us as we acquire new lands and right across the portfolio. Hopefully, we'll see the positive turn from that into 2027.
Thank you. There are no further questions in Q&A, and I will now hand it back to Stephen for closing remarks.
Thank you, Laura, and thank you all for joining today. We really appreciate it. Obviously, we'll be engaged with a number of you over the next number of days and weeks and look forward to seeing you. Thank you very much for joining us today.
Thank you. That concludes today's call. Thank you for your participation. You may now disconnect.