Good morning and welcome to MJ Gleeson Trading Update Call. I will now hand over to Chief Executive Graham Prothero. Please go ahead.
Morning, ladies and gentlemen. Thanks for joining the call this morning. I'm Graham Prothero, CEO of MJ Gleeson, and I'm joined by Stefan Allanson, CFO. We've announced our trading update this morning in respect of the year ended 30 June 2025, along with details of a series of management changes that Gleeson hopes to enhance our operational and commercial delivery. Let me give you a brief summary of what we've announced, and then we'll take your questions. Firstly, the trading update and the outlook for FY 2026. I'm pleased to confirm that the Group is expected to deliver a profit before tax and exceptional items for FY 2025 within current market expectations. These range from GBP 21.00 million-GBP 22.5 million. Having delivered 1,793 homes, Gleeson Homes is expected to report an operating profit within current market expectations, which range from GBP 21.7 million-GBP 23.00 million.
We're encouraged with net reservation rates, which, excluding bulk sales and partnerships, increased over the last six months, averaging 0.64 per site per week, and that's an increase of 28% over the corresponding period last year. We're also pleased with three partnership deals in the second half, covering 175 homes, and that's a strong performance by the team in what's been a weak market for partnerships deals. Gleeson Land, which had a very strong June, sold seven sites during the year and is expected to report an operating profit at the lower end of market expectations, which range from GBP 7.00 million-GBP 8.4 million. We ended the year with small net debt of GBP 800,000, and that's against a cash position last year of GBP 12.9 million. That depletion is down to timing differences.
Looking ahead, you won't be surprised to hear from me that the housing market still lacks confidence and remains subdued, and I don't see any short-term catalysts for a substantial improvement. We're selling houses, as reflected in our robust sales rate. We're not waiting for that enormous kicker. Continuing capacity issues in the planning system have delayed site openings, and we'll be operating from fewer sites than anticipated in the current year. However, our strong pipeline and improvements in our own process give us real confidence about our ambitious growth plans. Gleeson Land's performance in FY 2026 is expected to be similar to FY 2025, with delivery weighted to the latter part of the year. Taking these factors into account, we expect that the profit before tax and exceptionals for FY 2026 will be at or around GBP 24.5 million, which is the lower end of current market expectations.
Turning to Project Transform and the management changes at Gleeson Homes we've announced this morning. Now, just to be clear, the margin disappointment, which we described on June 3, arose from the market headwinds we alluded to. In February, as we told you, we expected full-year margins to be 1% higher than the first half. That margin recovery did not happen for the reasons we described. Stepping back, even with a margin recovery, those levels are lower than they should be. Part of that is self-inflicted, arising from process and procedure compliance issues within the business, which were resulting in cost overruns. We put in place some remedial actions through the course of 2024, but they did not fully address the issues. Last autumn, I initiated a comprehensive review of the business under the banner of Project Transform.
That review identified the need for management changes, changes which will shorten reporting lines, empower the divisional leadership teams, and strengthen regional managements, as well as reinforce controls and drive local ownership and accountability. They'll also substantially improve oversight of processes and compliance from the center, supported by enhanced data provision. We set out the details in the statement. We fully expect the changes will lead to a marked improvement in performance and delivery through FY 2026, improving pace and quality of build, and management and control of costs. Also, taking a hard look at the pace of growth in our northwest regions, we've taken the decision to bring Greater Manchester, Merseyside, and Cumbria under a single leadership team, taking advantage of operational synergies.
We remain fully committed to both of those regions and will naturally maintain teams and offices in both locations, but meanwhile save overhead and better leverage our leadership capability. In conclusion, this was certainly a challenging year for Gleeson. As well as external factors, it was clear to me that our commercial delivery was not where we needed it to be. We now have a thorough understanding of those issues and are well advanced in our plans to fix them. The changes being implemented at pace will significantly benefit the business through FY 2026 and beyond, ensuring the delivery of our strategic objectives.
Whilst I don't expect any significant economic recovery in the short term, our robust sales rate, along with our remedial actions, give me real confidence that we have a stronger business, which will deliver our projections for the current year and our significant growth plans over the medium term. Thanks very much for listening, and we'll be happy now to take your questions.
Thank you. Ladies and gentlemen, 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 Aynsley Lammin of Investec. Your line is open. Please go ahead.
Morning, both. It's Aynsley from Investec. Just three questions from me, please. First of all, just a bit more context around all the kind of organization and management changes. Is it right to kind of take that as being changes that the business would have naturally done as the Group evolved towards its kind of strategic objectives and something that was obviously ongoing, as you say, just to improve the commercial kind of discipline within the Group? Just on those strategic objectives, you haven't mentioned explicitly, but I guess the 3,000 homes kind of medium-term target is still where you're comfortable with and where you're aiming at. Just confirmation on that. Second question, just on the sales rates, I think you said it was 0.64, so up 28% in the kind of last six months.
Just how that's evolved, and are you still selling at a faster rate than what you'd consider to be the kind of average house builders or HBF rate? Just interested, any color there. Then just very briefly on the land business, that looks delivered seven deals quite impressively in the year. I guess you're still confident lots of changes have been in Gleeson Homes, but the kind of comfort around the land business, the strong pipeline, and how that business is progressing, any color would be helpful there as well. Thanks.
Morning, Aynsley . Thanks for those. Yeah, where should I start? Yeah, let's go in. More than you asked. 3,000 homes, absolutely, that remains the medium-term target. Organizational changes, would they have happened naturally? No. Go right back to when I joined, Aynsley . I said that we need to change this company from being a, in order to deliver our growth ambitions, we need to change from being a large small company to a small large company. We put through some significant structural change at that point through that first six months. It was pretty clear to me then through that first, through FY 2024, that some of the, if you like, processes and procedure compliance within all of that was a bit ragged. We made some changes through that year.
It did not really land to the extent that I wanted them to. Basically, in roundabout September, October last year, I said, "Right, I want to know. I want a more fundamental look at this. I want to know kind of top to bottom what is actually the challenge that is causing these issues." To characterize it, the ship was not sinking, but it was untidy. There were ropes all over the deck, and that is what I really wanted to get my hands around. Would they have evolved naturally? No, they would not. We took our best people internally. I actually used a couple of guys, a couple of consultants that I trust and have known for a long time externally, and we really did a root and branch. No, this is not evolution. They would not have happened naturally.
This is a pretty profound change to the way that we work. We haven't talked about it because it wouldn't have been appropriate, and it would have alarmed the staff internally, and it wasn't kind of our inessable stuff. It is important, and we're ready to go. Personally, I'm really excited. I think we're in great shape going forward. Turning to the, oh, you asked, yeah, the 0.64 over the last six months. Been a really interesting period. As we said to you in February, we set about kind of making our own luck, really, and we were at 0.77 in those first couple of months. There was a definite lull after the stamp duty. The stamp duty changes took place. April was quiet. To be honest with you, I wasn't happy with the quiet April, so we tightened things up again.
That challenge of getting closer with our sales directors, making our own luck is the phrase that I used in February, and we have done that again, and we have seen the same response. Things have definitely picked up. I think our four-week sales rate is about 0.59 as we stand. With regards to the rest of the industry, I mean, we look at that carefully, and so far as we can tell, currently, we are selling a bit ahead of the average for the industry. Yeah, strong January, February, bit of a dip in strong March as well, bit of a dip in April. I could see that continuing, so we want to work hard, and we have had a much better May and June, and that is how you have come out at the 0.64. That is what gives me confidence, Ainsley, that we will keep doing that.
Gleeson Land, yeah, it was an impressive year. It was a very busy June. In fact, it was a very busy second half of June. Am I confident? I'm increasingly confident about that business, Aynsley . Really exciting stuff going on down there. Guy has got a great team around him. It's really good to go and sit with those guys. The buzz in that business is phenomenal. They have exchanged a good number of great sites into the pipeline. We're actually down there with the board on Monday and Tuesday, and I'm really looking forward to that.
Thank you very much.
Thank you. We will now move on to our next question from Greg Poulton of Singer Capital Markets. He's opened. Please go ahead.
Morning, guys. Just a few for me, please. Firstly, on partnerships, could you talk about the shift in housing association behavior since that funding has been clarified? Could you talk about who the partnership agreements were with in the three that you signed in the year and whether the improved funding environment positively impacts the pipeline for 2026? Just adding Ainsley's question, could you just talk a bit about how the bid and win rates have evolved in Gleeson Land, please?
Yeah, absolutely. I'm writing that down so I don't forget. Interesting question, Greg, on the funding and the HA behavior. What the Chancellor announced was clearly positive. It's a significant settlement, and the rent settlement is as important as the increased grant. She didn't send them all a check that afternoon. It is spread over the life of—I am not an expert in the detail—but the grant is not all available. It is spread out and increases over the five-year period. It is not all available immediately. The housing associations are kind of waiting for the details to how and when and where that gets dispersed. There was some further ambition set out by Angela Rayner this week.
The effect is undoubtedly that those housing associations that are keen to develop have definitely been on the phone, so they know that they will be able to engage with us, certainly during the course of FY 2026 and hopefully during the first half. It was not set out clearly on the day of the spending review exactly how that would play. The appetite is there. They know that they are going to have funding, but they are not exactly clear yet on the terms, the types of deals on which they will be able to apply that grant. Definitely very much more positive.
The deals that we did during the year, if you'll bear with me, Greg, I'm just not sure that we have agreed what we're going to say and to whom, but these are with partners that we've worked with before, and there aren't that many, so you can work out who they are. That same principle, we only work with partners that we choose to work with, who we think will be aligned with our values and our own brand. A couple of those deals were signed last week, and there's probably some sort of publicity announcement, so bear with me. It's the same people we worked with before, and we're really proud to be associated with them. Oh, you asked whether the funding environment related to those deals? No.
These are deals that Helen and the team have done really well to negotiate and pull through against that backdrop of very little funding in the market. They have done superbly well to get anything at all across the line, in fact, in the last year, and it gives me great confidence for what they will achieve in the current year. In fact, there are another two that could have made it over the line in June, but there were some capacity issues in the partners that meant that they will fall into the first quarter. Things are going very well in that business, exactly as we would have hoped. Turning to the—sorry, I cannot read my notes now—in Gleeson Land, the bid and win rates. Yeah, very busy on opportunities coming through. The team is flat out.
We are sticking to our principles 100%, so we're still looking at probably less than one in ten of—
yeah, I mean, let's just take forward. You'll remember, Greg, in February, in the interim results, we talked about just how that business is really starting to fire on all cylinders. The restructuring of the business into three regional businesses, so that the team are much closer to landowners and agents, has really helped. The use of data analytics and technology in that business has meant that they are now looking—they were in the first half looking at twice as many land opportunities as they were in any previous period, but still dismissing maybe 90% of those and only bidding on 10%.
That means that they are bidding on twice as many, and their win rate in the first half had increased to winning one in three of what they're bidding on. That meant that they were winning two new promotion agreements every month. That has continued in the second half. It does take six to nine months to actually turn a win into a signed promotion contract because remember, we're largely talking with farmers here. You will see the increase in that portfolio come through during the first half of this year. You'll see some of that actually come through when we report the portfolio in September. There's been a significant increase in the portfolio. That's really starting to succeed now in the sector.
That's very helpful. Thanks, guys.
Thanks, Gregg.
Thank you. We will now move on to our next question from Alistair Stewart of Progressive Equity Research. The line is open. Please go ahead.
Oh, hi. Guys, Alistair Stewart from Progressive Equity Research here. Just one question, really, Gregg, next to my first one. You mentioned fewer sites than anticipated in the current year. Just for the absolute avoidance of doubt, you are talking about FY 2026 here. And can you put a bit of color onto why that's happened? Is it the old bugbear planning, or are there other factors creeping in?
Boring answer.
Morning.
I'm afraid yes, boring answer. It is the old bugbear planning in the vast majority. We have two aspects to it. There's the grinding through just what everybody understands, getting to and then getting through committee just takes a long time, and that's principally due to lack of resource in local planning departments. Also, then getting from resolution to grant to get your Section 106 signed is an increasing problem. I think the HBF published something on that a few weeks back. I think we're currently at, I think, about eight that we're waiting for. We were at a dozen. We got five through, but we've since got two more resolutions. We're probably a mass wrong there. We've got about eight where we're waiting for resolutions to grant. These are taking weeks, weeks, and weeks, and weeks.
Yes, it is simply the planning challenge that is pushing stuff out to the right. I'm sure there are other.
Sorry. Just saying, yeah, to sort of drill down a bit, is it getting less worse? Is it getting less worse more quickly or less quickly than anticipated? Sorry, I'm sounding like Donald Rump, so bear.
No. I mean, it really is the planning story, and you've heard me say this before. Labour has undoubtedly addressed the framework and is doing all the right things for the future of planning in this country. Gleeson Land, at the strategic end of the spectrum, is really benefiting from that. That is actually affecting one of the sites we sold in June, which was the site that I mentioned in January where we got planning permission on the first grey belt site. At that end of the spectrum, we're starting to see benefit from what Labour has done. The kind of nuts and bolts end of actually getting an implementable planning consent to go and put a spade in the ground, you're not being—that's not the issue of the National Planning Policy Framework.
That's how quickly you can grind through resource-constrained local authority planning departments. That really—I'm not seeing that improve.
Yeah, thanks very much.
Thank you. Once again, as a reminder, if you would like to ask a question, please press star one on your telephone keypad, and we'll pause for a further moment. Thank you. We will now take our next question from Charlie Campbell of Stifel. The line is open. Please go ahead.
Morning, guys. Just two or three, but I think they're all fairly quick, actually. Just to follow on from Alistair's question about sites, just to sort of widen that to the homes business. Just wondering kind of how we should be thinking about sort of average sites for 2026 and maybe closing sites for 2026 as well. Secondly, the sort of multi-unit sales was sort of perhaps a bit surprised to see that go down year on year. Just wondered why that was and whether that was sort of in line with your expectations or perhaps a bit behind. Lastly, just on incentives, I know we probably spoke about this at great length in June, but just wondering if there are any changes to report since then. Thanks very much.
Hi, Charlie. Yeah, thanks for those. I'll deal with the second and third, and then I'll ask Stefan to talk you through site numbers. Multi-unit sales, yeah, bulk sales as they're more widely known. I mean, look, we do those if we have to do them. We don't do them of choice. That market's been brutal, Charlie, this year. Why is that? That's the same issue of housing associations not really having the funds. There's not been many of them on the dance floor, which means that those who are around can really name their price. We could have done more, but we've been doing as few as we possibly could because, frankly, the discount rates have been unpalatable.
We are in the—we have been in a happy position that we have maintained a decent OMS rate and have not had to kind of run panicking to accept discounts in excess of 20% in the bulk market because that has been where those deals have been running. A deliberate, conscious, and controlled decision by me, Stefan, and the team. We review all sorts of offers, and we have accepted a few, but happily have not needed to give away, to take more deals at more aggressive discounts. The incentives, yeah. We have talked in the past about making our luck. That sales rate that I have said we have held up well and we are pleased with it. Same answer as in January, really. We are tweaking incentives, but we are not kind of throwing everything out. It is not the January sale.
Actually, I think in February, I said we'd increased our discounts. I'll get this slightly wrong, but I recall we'd gone from the first half had been at about 3.7%-3.8%, and the sales were at 0.77 we'd achieved in January, February. I think the average incentive was about 4.3%. It is still sub-5%. I think we're 4.7%-4.8% for the first half. We're not having to go mad, if you see what I mean. I come back to what I say. The market lacks confidence, but there are customers there for well-built homes in good locations, and they need teasing out with an incentive. We're not having to give them 10%. We're giving them less than 5%. You do have to be on your game. It has to be granular and site by site. That's what I mean by making our own luck.
Stefan, do you want to talk about site numbers?
Yeah. And just on the incentives, probably worth just adding that if you look at reservations during the last six months, we have actually increased prices. As Graham said, the level of incentives has slightly more than exceeded those gross price increases. Just on the question of sites, Charlie, we are expecting to open 30 sites this year, and we are currently selling on 57 sites. We do expect to be selling on more sites at the end of the year in the mid-60s. We are expecting to be selling on about 65 sites at the end of this year. The timing of when we close sites and when we open sites does mean that the average number of sites we are selling on this year will be lower than FY 2025.
Just to put the shape on the following year, we have a strong program of site openings planned for the following year as well, expecting to open somewhere between 2025 and 2030. The number of sites we're closing in the following year should reduce quite significantly. We will see an even bigger step up in site numbers the following year and a consequential big step up in the average number of sites. Although, just to say, although that profile of sites is exactly right, a lot of the, obviously, the closing sites are a bit of a pain. The profile will have a far better range on those sites in the current year. It's not all bad news. In other words, the average sites this year will be a range of newer sites with a full range of products.
We have part of the issue with, actually, with the sales rate in FY 2025 was a lot of closing sites, and we're down to four, six, eight, ten of similar units kind of thing. Be glad to be through that, actually, through those closing sites and working off newer sites for the full range.
Yeah, thanks very much.
Thanks, Charlie.
Thank you. We will now take our next question from Sam Collin of Peel Hunt. The line's open. Please go ahead.
Hi. Morning, everyone. It's just a follow-up, really, to your last point, Graham, on that mix of sites within the overall. Can you add some color, if you like, around profitability of those sites and the embedded margins of those sites and how much better they should be in 2026 versus 2025 and then 2027 versus 2026?
How grand is your—why do I not pick that up? Listen, the sites we were selling on in FY 2025, they are, on average, the margins certainly lower than we would like it to be, but significantly lower than the margin on new sites. If you think about our new site margins being in a range of 24%-30%, not that many at 30%, but some at 30%, as we close sites that are at the kind of 21%-ish margin and open new sites at 24%-close to 30%, you will see that average margin start to pull up naturally each year. I am not going to go into what the average margin is on all of our new sites, but it is comfortably higher than the average margin on our current sites.
We'll give you a bit more granularity, Sam, in September because there's quite a lot going on in terms of that view of margin. We will be using more supply and fix groundwork because that's a shift that we've been pushing through the business in the last 12 months. That changes your margin on the way in because it's probably an extra 2%-3% of cost on your groundworks. Why are we doing that? There are two aspects. My view and the view of quite a few of the senior team is actually you save money because that additional 2%-3% is outweighed by your end cost, your out-turn cost from labor only, particularly on a complex site.
You're deluding yourself on the way in thinking, "We'll do this with a couple of guys and a machine." You're much better off using the supply and fix. That changes the profile of your anticipated margin. Yeah, number of elements to that, which we'll give you a bit more on in September, but it's all about growing us up as a business. You can do 500, 1,000 units using labor-only subcontractors. You can't do 3,000 unless you start to work with the major groundworkers. That's another part of the migration. Another part of this: putting the company in shape to be solid and stable, standardized practices and processes, people doing the right thing all day, every day, and the same way as they are in Mansfield, as Middlesbrough, as Manchester.
That's the way we will have this company purring and operating and in great shape to take on the growth up through 2,000 and up to 3,000 units without spilling margin.
Great. Thank you.
Thanks, Sam.
Fair, Admiral. Further questions in queue. I'll now hand it back to Graham for closing remarks.
Great. Thank you, Laura. Thanks, everybody, for joining us unscheduled on a Friday morning, but we wanted to get back to you quickly after last month. Hopefully, you're picking up, yeah, a challenging year, but I'm really excited about now the prospects for FY 2026. We could not tell you about the changes at the beginning of June because I could not, through you, be telling the company, "Look, we've got these massive changes coming through at the end of the month." You can imagine what that might have done to my June numbers. Here we are. We're ready to go with the new structure in Gleeson Homes and the new management team, Gleeson Land firing on all cylinders. Very excited about the year to come. With that, I will let you enjoy your sunny Friday. Thanks very much for joining us.
Thank you. This concludes today's call. Thank you for your participation. You may now disconnect.