Good day, and welcome to the Barratt Developments full year 2022 trading update call. Today's conference is being recorded. At this time, I'd like to turn the conference over to David Thomas. Please go ahead, sir.
Thank you, and good morning, everyone, and thank you very much for joining us. Steven and Mike are both with me. I would like to begin by thanking our employees, our subcontractors, and our suppliers for their commitment in delivering what has been a really excellent performance in FY 2022. The housing market has remained strong across the country and throughout FY 2022. Our sales performance has reflected this strong demand with private sales rate at 0.81, 3.8% ahead of the 0.78 recorded in FY 2021. We have also seen strong underlying house price inflation, with pricing on reservations taken in the year improving by 8% across the country. Average sales outlets at 332 were 3.2% lower than the 343 in the prior year.
The reduction in average outlets reflected two main factors. Firstly, the strength of our private sales rate, which has remained stronger than we anticipated throughout the year. Secondly, some planning delays on new sites where local authority resourcing and the impacts of the pandemic have created delays to some site openings. We have, however, seen sales outlet numbers recover towards the end of the year, and we ended FY 2022 with 352 active sales outlets, just six below the 358 at the end of FY 2021. Total completions at 17,908 grew 3.9% versus FY 2021. We are really delighted to have grown completions back to pre-pandemic levels, which for us was a key milestone.
As we have flagged in the statement, total completions were impacted by the deferral into FY 2023 of a London apartment block of 221 homes. This reflected resource related delays in the building control process. The positive is that we have in any event, delivered a very strong performance in FY 2022. Our order book remains strong. Our total order book consisted of 13,579 homes, down 5.3% on the record order book at the end of FY 2021, but 4.3% ahead in value terms at GBP 3.6 billion.
I would also flag that our private order position is particularly strong, up 17.9% in value terms at GBP 2.3 billion, and consisting of 6,108 homes ahead by 6.7% on the June 2021 position. A standout in FY 2022 has been our build performance. Our site teams and subcontractors continued to improve our build output, which reached 352 equivalent homes per week, up 13.2% on the 311 in FY 2021. Key to this impressive build rate is the attraction and retention of high quality subcontractors, which we see as being based on three main ingredients. Firstly, creating safe, well-organized sites. Secondly, benefiting from our centralized procurement to ensure that we have security of material supply for our subcontractors.
Thirdly, our increased use of standard house types as well as more timber frame construction. Our construction teams have delivered this growth in output without compromising customer service or build quality. We have been awarded five star by our customers for the 13th consecutive year. This is a unique achievement amongst national house builders. Last month, we were awarded 98 Pride in the Job awards for site management, more than any other house builder for the 18th consecutive year. Our order book, in combination with our build performance, gives us confidence in our ability to deliver further completion growth in FY 2023. Now on build cost inflation.
As we highlighted at the interims and confirmed in May, build cost inflation was around 6% in FY 2022. We continued to experience upward pressure on build costs during the second half, reflecting in part the escalating energy cost backdrop that impacts production and transportation costs. We exited the year with total build cost inflation running between 9% and 10%. Our priority remains, as we've outlined before, ensuring the security of building material supplies. We continue to work with our supply chain partners to secure sustainable but competitive pricing. The result of both our strong sales build and also the completion performance is that adjusted pre-tax profits will be between GBP 1.05 billion and GBP 1.06 billion, slightly ahead of current market consensus expectations.
Our financial position also remains very strong, with net cash of GBP 1.1 billion at the year-end. Just a few other points to highlight from our statement. We are absolutely committed to playing a key role in both addressing the U.K.'s housing shortage and leading the industry around sustainability, while also being the industry's employer of choice. On growth, we have opened two new divisions in the year, Sheffield in our northern region and Anglia based in Norwich in our east region. We will also open an additional timber frame facility in England to complement our Oregon plant in Scotland. The new plant near Derby will add significant timber frame capacity from FY 2024. In leading the industry on sustainability, we launched our first air source heat pump-based development in Somerset and completed the Z House, the first beyond zero carbon house developed by a major house builder.
Both are important steps as we drive towards our zero carbon homes and net zero target for 2030. In our drive to be the employer of choice, we recognize the cost of living issues that so many people are facing. We brought forward our annual salary review from 1st of July to 1st of April , awarding a 5% increase to all eligible employees. We recently introduced a salary supplement of GBP 1,000 for all employees below senior management to support them over the six months to 31st of December , 2022. To outlook, there clearly continues to be a shortage of homes in the U.K. Customer demand continues to be strong, and mortgage availability is good. We recognize that there are significant macro uncertainties, both political and economic. We are not complacent.
We remain vigilant, and we will respond to changes in the market and the wider economy as they develop over the coming months. Based on current market conditions, we expect to grow total home completions in line with our medium-term target of 3%-5% in FY 2023. We also continue to buy land at our minimum gross margin hurdle rate of 23% and return capital employed of 25%. Overall, an excellent operational and financial performance, and we will now be happy to take your questions.
Thank you. Ladies and gentlemen, if you would like to ask a question, you can do so now by pressing star one on your telephones. That's star one to ask a question. We will now take our first question from Chris Millington from Numis. Please go ahead. Your line is open.
Thank you. Morning, David, Steve and Mike. A few for me. First one's just really on visibility over land and planning for FY 2023. You know, how much you've still got pending there and what risk may relate to that. Just a line to that one as well, just kind of what you're thinking about outlet numbers this year. I see you've made quite a good run towards the end of the year. The final one's just really on kind of discrete trading periods over the last month or so. Just what your experience has been, down valuations, cancellations, ability to keep pushing prices, and whether there's been any big regional variation there. That's all. Thank you.
Chris, hi. Good morning. I'll pick up on these, the sort of discrete trading periods, and talk for a moment and not really give you any more information. Steven will pick up in terms of land and planning, where we are for FY 2023 and also in terms of outlets as well, and our thoughts on outlets for 2023. I think in terms of discrete trading, and Chris, you'd understand that obviously we've looked at this very closely.
I mean, I'm not gonna start giving out numbers on a weekly or monthly basis. I think the reality is that when you look at the numbers as we reported back in May, we have seen an improvement in terms of our trading second half compared to first half, and those trends have been pretty consistent throughout the second half of the year. Looking at customer inquiries, looking at reservation rates, we're seeing very, very strong levels of customer interest. Now, we also monitor availability of mortgages, where again, we've seen a step up in terms of higher loan to values, and that's been a consistent trend during FY 2022. Primarily, I think as the banks ready themselves for the expiry of Help to Buy and knowing that, you know, they need to be operating with higher loan to values against that backdrop.
Other areas such as cancellations and down valuations, which we're monitoring on a week to week basis. We're just not seeing any changes in terms of those trends. Hence you can step back from it and say, if you look at FY 2023 overall, FY 2022 overall, we are seeing consistent and very strong trends throughout the year. Steven Boyes?
Yes. Thanks, David. Morning, Chris. In terms of land planning for FY 2023, virtually all the planning we need is in place. We need something like about 160 plots of planning, which we'd expect to have in this month. No big issues on that front. In fact, the planning we need is the sites have already got an outline planning, so it's only the reserved matters coming through. As I say, we'd expect them to come through in the next few weeks in fact. In terms of outlets, as you can see, we've grown our outlets considerably in Q4. We ended the year at 352 active outlets. In terms of next year, we've got more outlets to open next year than we opened in 2022.
In 2022 we opened 118 outlets. We've got a few more than that to open in 2023, we plan. We'd expect outlets to grow slightly in 2023. Clearly we'll be giving more detail in September. Okay.
That's really helpful. Thank you, gentlemen.
Chris, thank you. Thanks, Steven.
Thank you. We will now take our next question from Gregor Kuglitsch from UBS. Please go ahead.
Hi, can you hear me?
Yeah, Gregor, we can hear you.
Hi.
Good morning.
Good morning. I've got a question on your land acquisition. You give us a number of 19,000 plots. You say GBP 1.4 billion. I think that works out as like GBP 73,000 per plot. I guess I'm wondering how that squares with kind of your normal ASP was something, it was obviously a very high number compared to prior years, or whether there's something else going on here. I guess the underlying question is whether we're starting to see some, you know, erosion in profitability because of perhaps the competitiveness target. That's the first one. Second question is just, I think if we work backwards, it feels to me like you probably delivered, let's say a 25% growth last year. I don't know if you agree with that roughly.
I guess I want to get a feel for what the directionality of that is from here, considering your comments around pricing and cost, please. Thank you.
Gregor, thank you. Can I pass those both over to Mike?
Absolutely. Thank you. Morning, Gregor. If I start on land acquisitions, I mean, I think undoubtedly the average cost per plot that we've acquired this year is higher. I think that's probably in line with what you would expect because, you know, we've seen higher sales prices through the year and obviously land's bought on a residual sort of pricing basis. The other thing that's going on in the mix is that we've bought a higher proportion of sites for the David Wilson brand this year compared to the previous year. They tend to be in more sort of prime locations and do tend to carry a higher land value in any case.
You know, we've bought some very strong locations around sort of Edinburgh and southwest of England and parts of Eastern England as well. I think that's playing into that. In terms of erosion of profitability because of that, I would say that we're still buying in line with our hurdle gross margin rate, so we're not compromising on the hurdles that are coming through. You know, we're comfortable with the land that we're acquiring. Then just coming on to your question on gross margin, I mean, I think you're right. The consensus for our gross margin for 2022 sits at about 24.5%, which is clearly very strong.
You know, if you think about FY 2022, we've had a full year of very good selling prices and strong house price inflation coming through, and the cost price inflation we've only really seen since Christmas. Looking forward into FY 2023, we're obviously going to face a tougher build cost inflation environment. We're seeing that going up to 9%-10%, and we'll obviously have a full year of those higher costs coming through as well. When you factor all of those things in, you know, it's not unreasonable to expect the gross margin percentage to decrease next year. We see it probably moving back towards that hurdle rate of, you know, 23%-23.5% probably for FY 2023.
I think that's broadly speaking the direction of travel.
Thank you. Can I have a follow-up to question one? Would you be able to tell us what sort of the expected average selling price is rather compared to that GBP 73,000?
Well, I mean, look, I think the best.
GBP 1 million, it sounds like, you know, very high. I don't know.
Yeah. I think the best guidance we can give you on average selling prices, if you look into the forward order book, really, we're not gonna give any sort of guidance further forward than that. In the order book, the average selling price is currently sitting about GBP 375 on a private unit, which is, you know, that's 10% ahead of where it would've been this time last year.
Okay. Thank you.
Thank you. We will now take our next question from Aynsley Lammin from Investec. Please go ahead. The line is open.
Thanks, morning, all. Just two for me. Wonder if you'd just give a bit more color on the kind of build cost trends, you know, labor versus materials, and obviously you've got the GBP 1,000, you know, supplement going through for wages. Are you seeing more kind of pressure on labor now versus the material side? And then secondly, just on the kind of mortgage market, you know, obviously interest rates are moving higher. What your view is on how that's affecting the market, how you'd expect that to affect it going into the kind of autumn selling season? You know, is lending appetite still good? And just the kind of customers' reaction to what we've already seen on the interest rate front. Thanks.
Aynsley, hi, good morning. If I pick up in terms of mortgages and mortgage rates, and then Steven will pick up in terms of build costs and the trends on labor and material. I think you're, I mean, first of all, you've got to set it against the context of the numbers that we're reporting. We're obviously reporting numbers in terms of reservation rates right up to the end of June. We've said that our trends have been consistent during the course of the year. The customer interest and customer appetite is high, and we recognize that against that, you know, there are challenges around cost of living, seeing interest rate increases. Nonetheless, customer interest and customer appetite to actually complete on transactions is very high.
In terms of mortgage availability, I touched on it, but generally I would say mortgage availability is good and the banks are expanding loan to values. I think we saw some contraction of loan to values around the events to do with COVID and the banks having a slightly more cautious approach in terms of the availability of higher loan to values. We've seen a number of the major banks step up in terms of their loan to values, most recently Halifax moving their loan to values for new build homes. That mortgage availability is good for the consumer. I think interest rates, I mean, they are a factor, but we know that the market has operated very successfully with significantly higher interest rates than we're seeing presently.
We continue to monitor the market in terms of availability of mortgages, in terms of consumer demand, obviously on a week-to-week basis, but we don't see anything in there that's causing us any concerns. If I pass you over to Steven.
Yes. Thanks, David. Morning, Ainsley. Yeah, in terms of build cost inflation, I mean, for us it's been more about material inflation. As I've said earlier, on previous discussions, we've talked about the priority of cost is ensuring we have a good supply of materials. We've seen build cost inflation move steadily higher quarter by quarter throughout FY 2022. That's been really dominated by materials, and we've experienced some high levels of inflation in certain materials, particularly the timber, steel products, and also on other components, appliances and kitchen units, et cetera. In terms of what's coming through, clearly there's limited forward visibility. Suppliers are not keen to fix prices for much greater than three or even six months.
We're seeing that sort of a typical trend throughout the industry on the basis that they have got very limited visibility of the input costs coming through to them. Labor is certainly less from an inflationary pressure point of view, and the main pressure we've seen on labor is particularly on groundwork trades, foundations, drainage and road and sewer type trades. That's where we are in terms of build cost inflation.
Thank you very much.
Thanks, Steven. Thanks, Aynsley.
Thank you. We will now take our next question from Clyde Lewis from Peel Hunt. Please go ahead.
Morning, David, Steven, Mike, and I suspect John is lurking there in the background as well. Could I just follow up on Ainsley's question there around sort of build cost inflation? Because I suppose, you know, Steven, you made that very interesting comment that it's continued to climb higher quarter by quarter. Is this 9%-10% do you think the peak? Or does it go another, you know, 1%, 2%, 3% higher, do you think as you go through the new financial year, I suppose?
Because, you know, I think we're all trying to work out obviously that balance of sort of selling prices versus cost pressures and, you know, obviously on one hand we're seeing some commodities roll over, particularly timber and steel, but will that sort of, that softness get offset, I suppose, by increased wage costs? That was the first one. The second one was on land creditors, I suppose one for Mike around sort of appetite for sort of land creditors as you go forward and I suppose a little bit around. Do you start to think about changing those hurdle rates on land buying again, given the uncertainty maybe around build cost pressures?
Clyde, hi. Yeah, if I pick up just in terms of general comment about inflation, particularly build cost inflation, and then Mike will pick up, as you say, on land credits and hurdles. Look, I don't think we're gonna start calling whether this is the peak or it's not the peak. I think if we went back 12 months ago, I mean, who would have said that we were going to report 8% selling price inflation and be closing out talking about 9%-10% build cost inflation. I think we recognize that both on the sales side and on the cost side, inflation has far exceeded estimates.
What I would say on materials, which I do think is an important point, is that we understand that the input costs are a driver and very difficult to predict where the input costs will go, particularly in terms of the energy-related costs. I think also availability is a driver, and there is no question that if you went back six months ago, the availability of materials was far more challenged than it is today. I think you can look at that, sort of across the wider sector in terms of availability of materials and say that there is better availability than there was. I think we've always been in a strong position in terms of availability, as I touched on, in terms of our group procurement function. Across the whole industry, availability of materials has definitely improved positioning.
That should at least help in terms of dampening price inflation. In terms of the input cost side, I think we've just got to see how that evolves over the next few months.
Can I just pick up on land credits then, Clyde? I mean, the level of land credits that we have has been pretty stable over the last couple of years at sort of 21%-22% of the land bank. I mean, I think we're comfortable with it at that level going forward. I think the advantage, one of the advantages we have in the land market is the strength of our balance sheet means we are, you know, able to offer cash terms if that helps us secure land or helps us secure on better pricing. So we look at it very much on a case-by-case basis. But you know, I don't think looking forward into next year, certainly we don't really see that proportion of land credits as moving very much.
As I say, you know, we just look at it in the round as we're going through acquiring land.
Okay.
Sorry, I was just gonna say in terms of hurdle rates, I mean, you know, we're not planning to change hurdle rates. We're very comfortable. Obviously in assessing the hurdle rate, we're putting in current costs, but also current selling price. You know, we're very disciplined in applying those hurdle rates to the acquisitions.
Okay. Perfect.
Fine.
Thank you, gents.
Thanks.
Okay.
Thank you. We will now take our next question from Glynis Johnson from Jefferies. Please go ahead.
Morning, everyone. I just have three, if I may, and actually they're quite big picture ones. In terms of the land market, we've had a number of your peers talk about the land market becoming increasingly contested. Particularly I'm interested in where you've seen this bigger pickup and where you've been focused with sort of David Wilson Homes, the more prime locations. Is that how we should think about where Barratt is looking to position itself at that top end, that second stepper, bigger homes? Or is this just the lumpiness of land buying and things will revert to more normal, or lower ASP, you know, products being, or land being purchased going forward? Secondly, just in terms of planning, again, everyone's talked about how tough planning is.
The fact you have so little planning to do for the next 12 months ahead actually seems very impressive. You know, can you give us an update on where things are in terms of planning, nutrients, phosphate, all those other things? Is it that you're just, you know, your land bank has a better assumption in terms of timing? Or is there something in terms of your geographic exposure that means you haven't seen it as, aggressively as others? Just any color on that. Lastly, politics. Obviously a few things out of the new Housing Minister yesterday. I wonder if you can give us the Barratt view on what came out yesterday and, you know, any implications that you may have worked out so far.
Glynis, thank you. Okay, the last one sounds quite difficult. Look, if I pick up the question in terms of politics and then maybe if I just make a sort of overall and then Steven will pick up on the land market and really how we're positioning in terms of Barratt and David Wilson and also pick up in terms of planning and specifically can pick up on the nutrient neutrality. Look, I think in terms of politics that, you know, for us the immediate impact of the events of the last couple of weeks have been that we've had another change in terms of Secretary of State and Housing Minister, which, you know, is not something that we welcome. Clearly the less change the better.
That's our sort of starting position. In terms of Greg Clark coming back in as Secretary of State, albeit we recognize it may be on an interim basis, if there is going to be a change, then we see that as being a very positive change. Greg Clark has already demonstrated, you know, within a week that he is getting hold of certain issues, and moving things forward. When, you know, Steven talks about planning and nutrient neutrality and water neutrality, these are fundamentally important issues which can be solved by government. Therefore, people being focused on these things are very important.
In terms of the wider political agenda, the wider political happenings, I mean, I think we just like everyone else need to wait and see as to how it unfolds, because we can spend a lot of time speculating, but ultimately we know there is going to be a change in leadership, and that will be resolved over the summer. If I could pass over to Steven, and just in terms of land market, I would say that overarching from our point of view in the land market, you know, there is no change of strategy. We have always set out that Barratt is our, you know, is very much our value for money. It's a proposition that is coming in at the larger market level and house types are typically smaller.
David Wilson is, you know, more aspirational, larger house types, and therefore has a higher price point. There's absolutely no change in terms of that strategy. Steven, can I pass over to you?
Thanks David, and good morning, Glynis. Yes. I think, again, to reinforce what David was just saying there in terms of the sort of product mix we're going and buying, we're buying everything from Barratt, from a sort of one-bed, 500 sq ft dwelling, right the way up to David Wilson, five-bed, 2,500 sq ft. We operate across the full market mix. The brand is tailored to the quality of location and sometimes obviously the size of the site.
In terms of the land market, generally, you know, we've had a lot of success, that just shot to 19,100 plots in the year, and that sort of is on the back of some of the planning consents which came through in the last few years. I think it's 207,000 to March 2023, 19,000 consents in the prior year. We've seen some good sites come through. I think as I've indicated in the past, one of the sort of dynamics of the land market we've seen is larger sites coming through. Typically a lot of sites around 500 units, which is again ideally suited to our sort of operation where we can sort of split the site two ways.
We've maybe gotten 30% caps to 400 units on there and split it, Barratt and David Wilson. A 500-unit site is sort of ideal. We did a study recently and that sort of showed the sort of trend of the sites coming through in the planning system, and there's something like 600 sites in various stages of planning with over 1,000 units coming through. One of the things we're gonna see in future years is larger sites. Again, that suits our business model, where it's ideal for dual branding, potentially three or even four outlets, two Barratt, two David Wilson.
In terms of the final thing I'd say on land, our sort of hit rate is running around about one to 3.5 offers, so one to 3.5, one site of success for every 3.5 offers we make, which is our sort of usual level which we've operated at for a number of years. Land is good. Plenty coming through. We've got a number of terms agreed, which we'll also see come through in the next six months.
In terms of the planning system, clearly is no better, if anything it gets worse with purely a lack of resource in government departments, demoralized planning teams generally in local authorities through lack of resource and in some cases, political interference, local government political interference in terms of decisions. The other question you mentioned was about nutrient neutrality. I know the HBF estimate is about 120,000 homes currently held up in the system due to nutrient neutrality issues which are coming through. I think that's across 74 local authorities now, because that was extended in the last few months, a number of local authorities with nutrient neutrality issues.
These tend to be sites which are at the very early stages in terms of sites being allocated, coming through the planning system. A lot of the sites we buy already have an outline consent, so generally in those instances, nutrient neutrality doesn't apply. If you look at the nutrient neutrality issues from a Barratt perspective, clearly there's nothing in our FY 2023 year. When you look out to sort of our portfolio, we have about 10 sites currently impacted and they're delivering maybe 200 units, 220 units in FY 2024, FY 2025 and beyond. It's not a major issue at the current point for Barratt. They are solvable. You know, we have a couple of sites where there has been issues and we've managed to come up with solutions that address the terms.
Hopefully that gives you a bit of background.
All right. Thank you, Steven. Thank you, Glynis.
Thank you. We will now take our next question from Ami Galla from Citigroup. Please go ahead.
Yeah, thank you, guys. Just two from me. The first one was just generally on the build rates. The build rates that we've achieved in the second half, is that fairly an optimal level or is there any scope for further operational efficiency pushing those rates higher? The second one was just on demand and pricing. Are there any regional patterns emerging in the trading that you've seen in the recent couple of weeks?
Ami, hi. Hi, good morning. In terms of build rates, Steven will pick that up, and I'll pick up just in terms of the pricing. I mean, I think the short answer in terms of pricing is there's, you know, there's nothing in terms of recent trends with regard to pricing. I mean, I think when you look at it both from a volume and a price perspective, I think we've seen pretty consistent trends, whether that be over the last four weeks or over the last six months. I don't think any significant changes in terms of those trends. Obviously we keep monitoring that and we, you know, we talk about that on a week-to-week basis within our executive. Steven, you just had to talk about build rates.
Yep. Thanks. Thanks, David. Morning, Ami. Yes, in terms of build rates, as David mentioned in the opening statement, we're very, very pleased with the progress we've made over the past year. Our construction teams and subcontractors, suppliers have done an absolutely tremendous job. We're now exceeding pre-pandemic levels in terms of build rates. As we said, our build rate, which we measure in equivalent units per week, for FY 2022 was something like 252 EUs per week. That was based on H1. Our first half average was about 341 EUs per week, and second half it was 364. Second half generally is a higher productivity. It's better weather.
That is pretty typical in line with our historic norms in terms of build levels on page two. We're back to generally where we were pre-pandemic. From a sort of build point of view, the other key thing I think we need to mention is it isn't just about build rates, it's about the quality we produce. You know, we measure that in a number of ways, but one of the key areas is our Reportable Items, which are measured independently by the NHBC. We have maintained our position of having the lowest Reportable Items in the peer group for the last 12 months, I believe in terms of Reportable Items.
Of course, as David mentioned, the NHBC Pride in the Job where we had an outstanding performance with 98 Pride in the Job awards. Overall, build has been positive, and we're very pleased that we've got it back to the pre-pandemic levels.
Thank you.
Thanks. Thanks, Steven. Thanks, Ami.
Thank you. We will now take our next question from Rajesh from JP Morgan. Please go ahead.
Yes. Hi, good morning. I've got two as well, please. The first one is if you can provide some additional color on the deferral of the London apartment block. Do you see it as a one-off issue or have you had this issue elsewhere? The second one was around Gladman. Could you talk about the contribution this year and what do you expect it to deliver next year? Thank you.
Hi. Hi, good morning. I think, if I could sort of split the second question slightly. Just in terms of the first question, I mean, Steven will pick that up in terms of the London apartment block, where we saw the delay over the year-end. Then in terms of Gladman, I think Steven can also just pick up in terms of how Gladman's going generally, and then Mike can maybe just talk in terms of contribution against the acquisition. Steven?
Yes. Thanks, David. Yeah, in terms of the London apartment, it was one building, 20-story block apartments with 221 units. It relates to building control delay and it's the only building we had with that issue. As I say, it's been sort of delayed from 2022 and it'll happen in 2023. Unfortunately, it's related to resource issues and it's something we've typically seen in the public sector these days. You know, it's pretty commonplace where there is a lack of resource, and whether it's building control perhaps or even planning, there are issues that are industry wide. You know, it's something we're having to work through to deal with.
The key thing is that the units are built, they're finished, and they're just awaiting legal completion once the building control notices are issued, which should happen pretty soon hopefully. In terms of Gladman, before I hand over to Mike, yeah, from a sort of Gladman point of view, we completed the transaction in end of January. We've been integrating the business for the last five months. That's gone to plan, and we're very pleased with the way things are going. We've been busy renegotiating some of the promotion agreements and converting them into either options or in some cases pre-owned purchases. As I say, at the early stages, everything's going to plan.
We've had a number of successes where we've taken those sites from promotion into our option land bank lines. One case, there's a site we actually agreed and it contracted last week, which is a 500-unit site in the West Midlands, where the site has an outline planning permission, and we were able to negotiate that site off-market and bring it through into the Barratt Land Bank, as I say last week. We're pretty confident that the rationale we gave in January that the business would contribute around 500 units a year from FY 2025 will be achieved, and we're on course to deliver that certainly. Across to Mike.
Thanks, Rajesh. Just picking up on the numbers. I mean, clearly, you know, we paid GBP 250 million for Gladman in January. Still very early days in terms of our ownership overall. As we said at the time, you know, the EBITDA performance of that business is around GBP 20 million per year. We're working through, you know, finalizing the acquisition accounting. We'll be out with the numbers on that in September. It's performing absolutely in line with our expectations at this stage. You know, as Steven said, we're pleased with the performance.
Thank you.
Good. Fine. Thank you.
We will now take our next question. Arnaud Lehmann from Bank of America.
Thank you very much. Good morning to everybody. Just one left on my side, and it's like a big picture. In your statement, you confirm the target of 20,000 home completions for the medium term, and you seem to imply you could go beyond that. I guess the macro is getting a bit worse. As we discussed, there is meaningful cost inflation in the system that could put a bit of pressure on your gross margin. So the question would be from a strategic standpoint, does it still make sense to chase more volumes? And would there need to be time to slightly adjust the focus on, let's say, the supply, the values, the margins, rather than adding more volumes in the system? Thank you.
Yeah. Good morning. Look, I mean, I understand it's just terminology, but, you know, we're definitely not chasing volume. I mean, that's certainly not what we're doing. I mean, I think we set out very clearly back in 2016 that principal focus as a business was the improvement of our margin, improving our margin relative to our peer group. We set that strategy out in 2016, and you know, we've executed that strategy over the last five or so years, more standard house types and really looking at every cost component within our business in terms of build cost, overheads, et cetera. I think you can see in terms of the relative margin performance that we've executed that well.
We've also set out growth targets, but those are relatively low growth targets, and we set around 3%-5% per annum, and it will clearly take time to move up towards 20,000 completions. We do see that there is growth in the market, that there is an undersupply of housing, and there is opportunities for growth in the marketplace. When you look at our specific guidance in terms of FY 2023, we clearly have got a very strong forward order position. For the reason we already discussed, we're rolling over an apartment block from one year to the next, which, in itself, is giving us you know more than 1% growth in terms of completion volumes. I think we're comfortable to sit behind that growth position for FY 2023.
Clearly, we've got to continue to monitor the market on a week-to-week and month-to-month basis, which we will obviously continue to do.
Thank you very much.
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Okay. Excellent. Thank you very much, everyone, and we will be back on the 7th of September. Thank you.
Ladies and gentlemen, that will conclude today's conference. You may now all disconnect.