I think, pardon me, everyone's in, and I think it is 8:30 A.M. according to the clock there, so we will make a start. Welcome to Vistry's full year results presentation 2023. A bit of self-indulgence: this is my 22nd time I've presented an annual set of results. Don't do any more, you're all crying, I know, but 22nd, so I woke up at 2:30 A.M. thinking about that. The agenda today: good news or bad news, I'm just going to do the start and finish. The main presentations will be done by Tim, Earl, and Stephen, as you can see, their financial, market opportunity, and operational update. I will finish things off with an outlook, and then, of course, we'll take any questions that I'm sure you will have.
Again, we just wanted, before we actually start the presentation, this is a photo with numerous people working for the organization. So from the ELT, it would be wrong if I didn't come out with a huge thank you to all of our staff, people, because this has been a tumultuous year for Vistry. Started the year where we hadn't actually finished the integration of Galliford Try. Obviously, we had the huge integration task all the way through the year of Countryside. We then had in September an announcement about a new strategy, which turned everything on its head again, and all of that against a difficult and uncertain market. So an incredible performance, lots of tenacity, determination, and an awful lot of skill as well by the people of Vistry to come through that.
But I think when you look at our results compared to other house builders, I don't think we had any right with all of that going on to be in the same league as them. And I think you might actually say we've actually performed very well against the peer group. So well done to everyone at Vistry. So highlights. I think without any shadow of a doubt, Vistry has established itself as the country's leading partnerships business. We successfully integrated Countryside Partnerships ahead of schedule, and of course we had the strategy update, which we'll go through in more detail later on in September, to fully focus on partnerships. The resilience of our partnerships model is clearly being demonstrated in 2023. To show that you've got a resilient business model, you obviously need a downturn in a market.
So we were very fortunate to have a downturn in the market in our first year. But even the most cynical of you analysts out there and that's not a word you hear very often in the same sentence, cynical and analysts, but there you are must be quite impressed with the fact that we did 16,118 units last year. And I'm very confident if you take the calendar year 2023 that will make us by some way now the largest house builder by volume in the country. We, because of that and because of the visibility we offer our subcontractors and our supply chain with our new model, were more than able to offset the inflationary increases in build costs that came through in 2023. We remained active in the land market with just over 13,000 plots bought. The land market remained subdued, soft.
I'm really, really pleased the fact that I was interviewed two or three weeks ago by a leading house building journalist. His first question was, "Greg, what have you got to say about all your competitors saying we can't compete or we're finding it really difficult to compete with Vistry in the land market?" I didn't say that. He said that and other house builders. I just said and I can see it. Being around for a long time, I can see that we are, with this new model, very, very competitive in the land market, particularly on land of more than 400 units. You would find it very difficult to compete with us. We've made significant progress with the timber frame manufacturing facilities, our three factories, that we've got.
When we bought Countryside, we had to come up with 10 strategic reasons why we were buying Countryside. The first one was obviously partnerships. And we had, at the time, number seven or eight, getting our hands on a timber frame manufacturing facility, which we'd never had before. I can already tell you today I'd put the fact that we've got a timber frame manufacturing facility probably at number three. And if you haven't been to see it, six weeks ago we launched the Vistry Innovation Centre, the VIC, which is far more interesting than the one on some programme called EastEnders. We've done that. I've been there. It is fantastic. You should you should go and have a look at it.
And I can absolutely, honestly see, as a traditional house builder, over the next five years, timber frame forget the modular construction, the L&K s, the L&Gs that I can really see a way forward as to how we are going to build the number of units that we require to be built with an awful lot of vertical integration coming from those three factories and no doubt more over the next couple of years. We fully expect to be awarded again 5-star HBF customer satisfaction rating, and that will be for the fifth successive year. And on top of that, and possibly even more importantly, we're making great inroads on our nine-month score, which currently sits at just under 80%. So strategic progress. We've made significant progress on our strategy since the September update. The organization change has already been implemented. That means we've now got 26 business units.
We closed six business units, which were pretty much next to each other, led by six very talented divisional chairmen who, in turn, all report through to Earl. The transition of the former house building land bank is progressing exceptionally well. That enables us to focus particularly on our medium-term targets. Under Stephen, the partnerships and regeneration team are now working across the business. That's important because it is a different game than pure house building. We now have some brilliant consistency about the deals we are doing where we can match all the different housing associations, PRS providers, and local authorities against each other under Stephen's leadership. I'm delighted to say that the share buyback programme has commenced. We've completed the initial GBP 55 million buyback, and this morning we announced a GBP 100 million further buyback.
On a personal basis, I'd be very surprised if we didn't have some more encouraging news on that in the second half of this year. Over to you, Tim.
Thanks, Greg. Morning, everybody.
Morning.
The good news is I've got lots of slides, but somebody told me that some people have some lunch appointments, so I'll try and race through relatively quickly. So let's start with the summary of the group results. Now, most of the information on here was indicated at the trading statement back in January, so I'll just race through from top to bottom. Our revenue for the year was up 30% on prior year, but that included the benefit of the countryside combination. On a pro forma basis, we were down a little less than 10% in year, which compares very favorably against our peer group. In terms of the operating profit, operating profit held up well, and the operating margin held up well given the market conditions, and I'll come back and cover that in a bit more detail later.
Profits before tax up marginally year-on-year, and reported profit before tax was up more significantly. So reported profit before tax is after allowing for exceptional items, and we had a lower level of exceptional items this year than last year. EPS looks like it's gone down considerably year-on-year. And the reason for that is that there was the dilution impact which we would have expected from the issuance of Countryside or the issuance of shares to purchase Countryside at the end of 2022. In terms of net debt, we finished broadly where we expected to finish for the year, where we finished with a net debt of GBP 89 million, and I'll cover that in more detail later. And the return on capital employed at 21% is dragged down by our former house building business.
Again, that's an area of focus that we'll talk about a bit more later. But our former partnerships business is still delivering ROCE around 40%. So before we go too much into the numbers, we are a unique partnerships model, and there is not a standard framework of terminology for the, for this area. So we're going to use various terms during the course of this presentation. I thought it might be useful just to lay out exactly what those things are. So starting at the top, Vistry as a group is a 100% partnerships business. So everything we do is partnerships, which means that every scheme that we operate on, we do with a partner. Within that, we operate broadly in two markets. The first market we define as partner-funded. So partner-funded is effectively our B2B business, and that is where we pre-sell to, a range of customers.
The open market is the more traditional sale at the end of the process. We've said before that the minimum amount of partner-funded we want to do on any particular site is 50%, and as a guideline, 65% is the average for the portfolio as a whole. Within any particular year, it will vary. We did 67% in 2023. In terms of the tenures within the markets, within the partner-funded market, there were three tenures we talk about. One is Section 106, which is defined by the planning obligations that we have. The second is additional affordable, where we have discretion, so we choose to sell more affordable. The third is PRS, the private rented sector, also known as build-to-rent.
And in terms of the numbers that we're going to provide, we're going to provide revenue units in an ASP at a market level, and we will give you unit numbers at a tenure level. In terms of the brands we operate under so all of our partnership all of our partner-funded operates under the Countryside Partnerships brand. And we have three retail brands we use for open market sales: Countryside Homes, Linden Homes, and Bovis Homes. And the customers, you can see on the slide there for partner-funded, are a mixture of local authorities, registered providers, and PRS providers. And Stephen's going to provide a lot more detail on that later on. Okay, so with terminology defined, let's look at some of the group metrics for the year. So three things to pick out in particular here. The first is the growth of partner-funded.
You can see that we're taking advantage of our model that, despite market conditions, we've been able to grow the number of units in partner-funded by 36% year-on-year. That's compensated for the lower activity in open market sales. That's resulted in a 67/33 split. We've moved towards our overall guideline position very quickly. In terms of, excuse me, ASP, ASP as a whole is broadly flat year-on-year, slightly down because of the mix effect, but not as far down as you might expect. That's because the ASP within partner-funded has gone up for a number of mixed reasons, but primarily because the tenure mix within partner-funded has shifted more towards the additional affordable and PRS, where you would expect to charge a higher price than for the Section 106 work.
So within the tenure mix, the three tenures, as I described earlier on, first of all, Section 106, we think broadly that's going to be between 25%-30% of units for the group as a whole going forward. We were at 28% in 2023. We expect it will be roughly in the same space in 2024. For the additional affordable and PRS, that split together will be interchangeable, where there's going to be, some sort of substitution between those. But the two combined will be somewhere between 35%-45% in the year. Of that, we have 13% PRS in 2023. Our expectation is, if anything, that is likely to go up as a proportion this year because the PRS market is looking very attractive at the moment. So what's driving the operating margin? four factors on here, two up, two down.
First of all, in terms of the mix, there's a downward push on margins because we're moving more towards this partner-funded model where you'd expect to have a lower margin. Indeed, during the year, we did a reset of all of our schemes, looking at those schemes that are now going to be a mixed tenure, whereas previously they would have been a house building only site. As a result of that, looking at the future life margins, we made an adjustment down within 2023 of around GBP 40 million, and that's reset the margin for the business going forward. The other downward driver is on pricing. So there have been some headwinds during the course of the year.
On the open market sales, incentives ticked up a little bit during the course of the year, and they were up to around 5% towards the end of the year. The start of this year is looking more promising, and the incentive levels that we're offering are coming back down again. In terms of the discount that we offer on the partner-funded work, we'd talk about a range of 5%-15%, if anything slightly higher towards the end of the year. Again, we're seeing some good valuations, some good offers coming through at the start of this year that encourage us to think that that level of discount will come down a bit in 2024. Those are the two negatives. The two positives in terms of margin are build costs and synergies.
In terms of the build costs, I think we're really seeing the benefit here of our scale and of the visibility of our forward order book, and hence the certainty of our build programme, which is enabling us to say to subcontractors and suppliers, "Look, there's a certainty of demand for your product or your service." And we've used that in negotiating very favourable costs going forward. So we've seen benefit of that in 2023, and we'll see that benefit roll into 2024. And we think that the build costs for 2024 will be somewhere around 5% lower than the build costs that we had in the summer of 2023 before we engaged in these renegotiations. So that's really encouraging. In terms of the synergies, we are well on track to achieve what we said we'd achieve at the time of the Countryside combination and achieve ahead of schedule.
So we believe we achieve synergies in the region of GBP 50 million during FY 2023, and the run rate of about GBP 60 million will be in FY 2024. And then we talked about further synergies coming from the strategy change, so from the closure of a number of business units and from the streamlining of central operations. And we're targeting GBP 15 million of savings within FY 2024 and a GBP 25 million run rate thereafter. So in terms of all, what does that all mean for 2024? I mean, I think because we'll continue the journey towards slightly more partner-funded work and we'll be trading out some of the pure house building sites, we'd expect margin to tick down a little bit in FY 2024, but not substantially.
So just working our way down the P&L, in terms of net bank interest, we've flagged before that with the higher average debt and the higher interest rates, clearly there's been an interest in an increase in bank interest during the course of the year. We've seen average net debt increase from GBP 110 million- GBP 459 million, partly as a result of more WIP and partly as a result of layering the Countryside average debt on top of the Vistry average debt. And we've seen interest rates go up on average by about 2.5 percentage points during the course of the year. In terms of our facilities, we have extended our term loan, our GBP 400 million term loan, out through to September 2026, which gives us more flexibility in terms of investment and funding going forward.
And the other movement on finance costs is around other net finance costs, which is really just around the Countryside impact for additional net finance costs from leasing and land creditors in Countryside. In terms of tax, finally, on this sheet, we have an effective tax rate of 27.2% in FY 2023. And with the full year impact of the corporation tax increase coming through, it's going to be close to 29% in FY 2024. It's gone to fire safety. Fire safety remediation is progressing well. We spent GBP 45 million or thereabouts in 2023. We've also succeeded in getting about GBP 11 million of recoveries from partners and from building owners during the course of the year, which has enabled us to take a little bit more contingency in the provision rather than adjusting the provision.
In terms of the provision level, we're confident with from the work that we've done and what we're seeing going forward in our future work that the provision's at the right sort of level. And we expect that in 2024, somewhere between GBP 50 million and GBP 60 million of net cash will flow out during 2024. Then, reconciling net earnings on an adjusted basis as we report it to reported profit. The excluded items are largely exceptionals and amortization. The exceptionals, three components. Fire safety, we had the impact of the second staircase in the first half of the year. I won't go through that again now. We also had costs associated with the Countryside combination and the second wave of restructuring that happened in the first half of the year.
In the second half of the year, we booked the costs of the change in strategy, which is largely people costs. Again, as we've reduced the number of business units as a result of that combination, and we've removed some duplicate roles in the center, we're going to make the GBP 25 million a year savings that I talked about earlier on. So to land. So we've been active in the land market again in 2023. We've been opportunistic, but we've continued to replenish our land bank with some good opportunities. It's difficult to draw any market- wide themes around the land market, because we've been quite discretionary in how we've entered it, but we've found some good deals during the course of the year. And, we're confident with the geographic mix that we've got.
As you can see from this chart, it's well spread, so it's filling up the hopper for the future, which means that our land bank looks like this. We have 76,000 plots in owned and controlled at the end of the year, which supports our growth assumptions in excess of four years' worth of growth. But of course, we're going to continue to replenish during the course of the year. The mix within that, 27% of our land bank is controlled, 73% owned. With the way that we can source land from our partners, we'd actually expect the controlled piece to be a higher proportion as we go forward, which is good for our cash management. On strategic land, strategic land remains a key component of our business, both the strategic land bank and the strategic land team.
And we've replenished to a lesser extent this year, 7,300 plots added during the course of the year. We're looking at those sites to ensure that they meet the criteria of the partnership's model and looking at some contractual or commercial changes to some elements of the land bank. We're going to continue to assume that in excess of 20% of our future completions will come from land sourced through Strategic Land. And that land should give us a 1%-2% margin benefit because of the process of the Strategic Land. So cash flow, so net cash inflow in the second half of the year of GBP 240 million. But over the course of the year, we have seen a net cash outflow. Where's that come from? Well, first of all, we had slower than anticipated sales in the second half of the year.
So we have built slightly ahead of sales in the second half of the year and built up WIP. That's primarily in the open market side of the business. We've also got some timing impact around the delivery of new homes in early 2024, which has created more WIP on the balance sheets. The other thing that's happened is that at the end of 2022, when Countryside was being bought, there was less build activity in that fourth quarter and those sites have returned to a more normal level at the end of 2023. Hence, there's more WIP on the balance sheet at the end of the year. That explains the net investment in WIP during the year. In terms of land, as I've said before, we've got the same level of land bank.
So the average cost per plot has gone up, around 4% during the course of the year, which is purely a mix point. It's nothing to do with the overall land market. It's just where we happen to have bought the land. Then in terms of other working capital, a small outflow, actually a relatively, decent-sized outflow, GBP 50 million outflow on working capital. This is largely due to trade receivables building up as part of our business model with partner-funded and it being a B2B business. There is a receivables that wouldn't have been there in more of a B2C business. And the fact that we did so much work in the last couple of months of the year meant that we ended up with a higher receivables balance at the end of December. I think I've covered most of the other items before.
JVs is up, net investment, and that's just more JV activity in the year than we've had previously. And, I think integration cost and taxation are self-explanatory. So in terms of capital employed, the capital employed has gone up by GBP 280 million over the course of the year, but come down by GBP 140 million in the second half of the year. Overall, the movement is really the same set of explanations I've just given on the cash side with the buildup in WIP being the prime driver of the increasing capital employed. But as we'll come back to later, we have plans afoot for, addressing that capital employed. Turning then to capital allocation. So we set out our new capital allocation policy in September last year, and we said that we would have ordinary distributions at 2x cover.
So 50% of adjusted net earnings will be distributed as an ordinary distribution. We've elected for that ordinary distribution to be in the form of buybacks again for the final dividend. So as Greg said, we've already distributed GBP 55 million in buybacks. We completed that programme in February, and we are now starting a new programme, next month in April for a further GBP 100 million in lieu of the year-end dividend. So that GBP 155 million of distributions in relation to 2023 earnings is just over 50% distribution of net earnings.
Then the other piece is around special distributions. So we remain committed to our GBP 1 billion of distributions over the next three years. The timing of that distribution will depend on the profile of the capital release programme. And so there's two steps there. Step one is the time, determining the timing and the quantum of that capital release.
The second is making the call on for that first wave, how much of it is used to reduce our average debt and how much is used for distributions. All of those decisions will be discussed among the board over the course of the next quarter and into the summer, and we'll keep the markets updated as we make decisions. Finally, for me, you'll be relieved to hear, finally for me, achieving our medium-term targets. Bring it back to our journey. We're still in the early stages of that journey, but making good progress. Just laying out the four building blocks here to get from the 21.3% that we reported in 2023 to the 40+% that we'll report in 2024, in our medium- term in three to five years.
And just to remind you that in our former partnerships business, we're already at that 40%. So this is about keeping the discipline on that, and it's about turning our house building business and releasing those assets to create 40% across the whole business. So what are those four chunks, going from bottom up? The first is transitioning the former house building land bank, and the second is ensuring that we have the most efficient capital position on our balance sheet and release some of those slower moving assets from our balance sheet, and also ensuring at the same time operational efficiency. But I won't steal Earl's thunder any more on that. Next point, 100% adherence to the partnership model. Discipline is going to be really important here. We know that that's where others have taken missteps. So absolute adherence.
We've got a set of hurdle weights in there that are non-negotiable, and we have a new partnerships and regenerations team to ensure that every new deal that has the partner funding element in it is understood and reviewed and optimized to ensure the best return on capital from that scheme. And then finally, of course, we need to grow the business, and that's growing both the open market side and the partner-funded side. And it's a good segue across to Stephen, who's going to talk about our growth plans and about the attractive market ahead. So that's it for me.
Very good. Thanks, Tim. Good morning, everyone. So Greg talked about the resilience in our partnerships business model. And of course, it's that resilience coupled with our offering as a responsible developer, working with our partners across a range of tenures that drives the opportunities within the market.
So let's just start with the evidence base for that market. So we've got some figures here, which are based on government 2022-2023 published figures. So you can see 30,000 Section 106 homes delivered in 2022-2023, 34,000 using grant. That's grant providing that additionality, going back to the term that Tim used earlier. Supplement that with 16,000 PRS homes. And you can see the scale of the partnerships market this year is around GBP 17 billion-GBP 18 billion. And you can see our strong placement and leadership within that market when you look at that market share, 14%. Now, that market share is spread. It's spread geographically, and it's also spread, as you'll see in a moment, across a range of partners. And you can also see there the opportunity for us to grow our open market offering as well, which of course includes some of our JV work.
The long-term trend around affordable delivery has been around 55,000 homes a year. You can see it in that context. What does that mean when we look forward? Last time, we were gathered here, I talked about the fact that the lack of housing supply was a disaster. I think it's now a disgrace as we approach a general election. It's a disgrace if you're a citizen and there's not enough housing in the country. It's a disgrace if you're on the waiting list. It's a disgrace if you're a taxpayer. Temporary homelessness costing the Exchequer this last year, GBP 1.7 billion, is set to be GBP 2.1 billion for the next year. From that, it's in that context that respective respected commentators, Heriot- Watt and Savills, have identified the current demand in this space.
So you can see 140,000 homes required for affordable housing and another 50,000 for PRS. So 190,000 is what would be required in order to meet housing need today. If you were trying to get there over our plan period, you'd be looking at a compound growth of around 19%-20%. Our expectation shown within that graphic is that a much more conservative 10% growth over that period in terms of delivering those numbers. And of course, delivering those numbers involves working with our partners. So as Tim has illustrated, there are four particular cohorts of partners, four subsectors, traditional registered providers who have some headwinds, and we'll talk about that in a moment. But we do expect that purple arrow to start to become green over the next couple of years. For-profit registered providers, an area of growth.
PRS providers and local authorities, much more determined by the political freedoms that they would be given going forward. But we know there's an expansive mood among local authorities to address housing supply. So let's drill into each of those for a moment. So traditional registered providers. So they are struggling with the dilemma that their social purpose is all about delivery, delivery of new homes, addressing the chronic housing need, but they have some headwinds. Those headwinds around reinvesting in their stock, around the cost of funds, around the regulatory expectations of their customer engagement. But it is an uneven platform. There are a number of housing associations who have cut back their programmes, but there are others who are managing to continue to deliver. Look at those numbers.
That reflects the continuing investment in the sector, GBP 14.6 billion of investment last year, up from the previous year of GBP 12.6 billion. And the latest quarterly survey from the Regulator of Social Housing identifies further growth in that sector. Interestingly, a faster rate of growth in new supply than actually investing in their stock over that year, which was slightly unexpected, but that's very clear.
We work with a range of those partners. And so if you look at that, diagram on the right-hand side, that's not an extract from Tim's slightly dodgy psychedelic record collection. It's actually a proportionate pie chart showing our engagement with those traditional registered providers. So we're working with over 97 registered providers, on delivery. And you can see that that's both, national housing associations and regional housing associations. They particularly like working with us in terms of seeing our commitment to ESG and placemaking.
And this is the cohort where we really expect our partnerships to flourish in addressing the chronic need for regeneration schemes across the country, looking at reinvesting in our estates, some great work that we've already done with those providers. But in addition to that, our purchasing sector is supplemented by the new for-profit providers. So you can see the growth in those from 2013 when they were 18. I think they're just over 70 today of for-profit providers. That has brought fresh capital into the business, unburdened by balance sheet liabilities in respect of their existing stock. So we're doing some great work with new for-profit providers. Most recently, you will have read about our work with Sage. So this is a growing market for us. Back in 2013, one of those 18 was an organisation called Linden First.
So we have our own for-profit provider, which over the course of the next eight months, we're intending to capitalise. And we will use that as another route to market for our affordable housing delivery. Importantly, not displacing any of the relationships that we've got with our existing partners, but amplifying those routes to market. Private rented sector providers. So here we see positive rental growth, a lack of supply, really bringing fresh capital again into the business. We've seen the exit of small players, as you know, over the course of the last year. And so we're really in a position that we can grow this percentage of our pie chart, as Tim mentioned earlier. We can see really good opportunities here. We're already working with the likes of Leaf Living, with Sigma, Gatehouse Bank, Packaged Living, L&G.
There's a range, Cheyne Capital, a range of partners that we are looking to work with and we are working with on delivery. Really importantly, what attracts them to working with Vistry is the visibility of land supply, our end-to-end offer that allows us to give them opportunities for cross-regional portfolios. The efficiency in looking at portfolio delivery is obvious. It's efficient for us, and it's efficient for our partners. They really want that forward visibility that comes with that opportunity. Local authorities also, like our registered providers, are particularly interested in our placemaking and ESG. It's an area that we see continued growth in. We know the majority of local authorities are aspirant to deliver homes. Why wouldn't you be faced with your revenue burden in respect of temporary homelessness, which is really weighing on local authority local authority finances? 25% of them are very active.
We're involved in local housing companies and joint ventures. Of course, they've still got significant land assets to bring forward. We're in a good position here because we work with about 30 local authorities. We have precedent schemes which are around regeneration, mid-rise and high-rise. We also have a number of schemes where we're working with local authorities on portfolios of land to sequentially develop that land out. Those joint ventures really represent an opportunity for us to match our skills with the local authority commission in an effective way. Of course, what we hope is governments will be looking at giving more freedoms to local authorities to deliver. Converting that is the key. What have we got in terms of our opportunities? You can see here the arc.
This is a bridge to 233,000 homes that we have our eye on. Of those, if you take off the Strategic Land and the identified opportunities as being rather upstream, just focus on those first four. Our order book already delivering 21,000 homes, 15,000 homes where we are preferred bidder, working with our partners, whether that's a local authority, an RP, or a PRS provider, 59,000 plots within our secured land banks. This is our mixed tenure land bank. This is the land bank that we intend to apply our partnerships model to, working with partners. If you add to that the ones that we're also in negotiation one-to-one on, you've got 102,000 homes that are already some far considerable way through our hopper and being worked on within the business for delivery.
Put that in the context of the numbers that we've talked about that we delivered last year. And you can see how we have the ability to respond to delivery with a new incoming government. Of course, that's all about us continuing to operate as a responsible developer, continuing to operate efficiency efficiently in terms of our operations. And I'll hand over to Earl now to take us through that. Earl?
Thank you, Stephen. Good morning, everyone. Same response as everybody else got . Operational update. So a lot going on at Vistry, as there always is, I'm pleased to say. So look, we are absolutely structured for growth, and that is the current structure following the new strategy in September. And of course, that does follow the integration of Countryside that was only at the beginning of last year.
So, on this slide, you know, they're not new priorities for a house builder, but there certainly is a different focus within Vistry with our differentiated model. So in terms of structure for growth, we are structured for growth in sales, almost irrelevant of the market. So local regional expertise, but also that national focus. So the partnership and regeneration team, Greg mentioned, headed by Stephen, really coordinating all our activity with those local authorities, RPs, right the way across the country. Land, again, both local and national expertise, no matter what, you know, bringing all forms of development through. And that is short and long-term land. So that strength in strategic land that Tim mentioned as well. We do have ample capacity to grow over the next few years, and that's supported by our manufacturing in Vistry Works. And more of that in a moment.
Our final priority at the minute is that we are now one fully aligned partnerships business. We are looking at for the best way of doing everything, and that will deliver efficiency, standardization, and further cost savings. We've formed a number of business improvement groups, or BIGs, as we like to call them. Whether that's looking at how we drive more standard homes through the operation, how we optimize our relationships with our supply chain, or deliver the best quality service for our customers and clients, all of that will deliver further efficiency and cost savings over the next 12 months. Of course, through that restructuring, we have retained the absolute best-in-class support across our central functions, supporting all our regional businesses. A little bit more on a few of those areas. Land, Greg said it right up front.
We really do have an unrivaled competitive advantage in terms of land. Those large sites delivering multiple tenures across multiple brands. We are driving higher absorption rates. We are driving the return on capital up. Excuse me. And we'll look, we seek to build using somebody else's money. And by doing so, in that presale position, we are willing to accept a lower margin than some of our competitors. Unrivaled collaboration that Stephen's touched on. And of course, we don't actually need to take an interest in land in terms of our development. So we're very happy to have fully funded development. And regeneration is a strength in parts of our business, but that means it really is a big growth opportunity in other parts of the business. Supply chain. We do have the lowest cost production in the sector.
For our suppliers and our subcontractors, we are doing exactly what we said we would. So we are delivering at scale and giving that build visibility, so a guaranteed pipeline of work. That guaranteed pipeline is also what is feeding our factories and is going to feed the growth in our timber frame. It's what a manufacturing facility needs, as well as the standard product coming through. Optimizing relationships with our supply chain to still 90% of our materials bought centrally in order to get the best deals. Look, I do thank our supply chain for going through all the change with us over the last 12 months. I do think that is to our mutual benefit. Yes, we have the capacity to grow. So 26 businesses all looking to do as many as 900 units a year.
We already have eight of our businesses looking to do over 800 this year. We are flexible in terms of our geographical coverage with divisions working together. A key differentiator is we are not constrained by private sales rate. We are build rate-led. So if we have around 350 build outlets, yes, we have 200 that are selling private homes. But even those 200 are looking at 50% or more presold, and then another 150 that are fully presold. So we are build rate-led. A couple of slides just on our transition to a fully partnerships model. Tim referred to this. So this was an analysis I shared with you in September, just bringing you up to date. So at the end of December last year, we had presold 4,300 plots of an identified 9,500. So about 45% done by the end of last year.
We've got a remaining 5,200 we've identified we think we will presell the majority of those this year. And we've done a few deals already this year. Then an additional 1,500 we've identified that we will look to trade as well, leaving around 8,300 private. And the balance 7,000 is affordable, broadly in line with our partnerships model. So really good progress so far. And this transition becomes part of our capital efficiency programme, again, Tim referred to, in terms of bringing that capital employed down in the business. Look, we're looking at it in four buckets. So operational excellence, all the really good things you'd expect any house builder to do. But I'll pull out two differentiations. That absolute speed of delivery, so multi-tenure and using our timber frame, and then building with our partners' money. So really optimizing the funding that we have in our organization.
Commercial structures. Stephen mentioned a number. We are unrivaled in terms of the number of different commercial structures we have with our partners. So whether that is with local authority funded, like we have with Warwick District Council at Kenilworth we've talked to you about before, or our RP joint ventures. So we mentioned Peel Hall at Warrington before. And of course, there are new partners coming in and new structures we're looking at and working with Homes England, not least with our Strategic Partnership programme. There continues to be opportunities for land sales and swaps. We have done one sale to an SME already and got terms agreed on a second sale. And as I've already mentioned, that fully partner-funded delivery, including regeneration. But we will continue to work with Leaf, Sage, Sigma, and others in terms of frameworks and portfolio deals.
Open market sales remains really important to us. And, of course, like others, we did see a subdued market last year. We have seen a bit of a step up this year. And we'd happily see a little bit more of a step up. We are focused on what we can do in the market. And really important was our shared ownership scheme we set up with Sage during last year, so Home Stepper. We've already done nearly 500 reservations through that scheme. And I really do see shared ownership options as a key part of our delivery going forwards, in particular for first-time buyers trying to get on the housing ladder. Other things, as you would expect, for a good house builder, really focused on our digital marketing. National marketing campaign went out again last week. Wider use of part exchange, done it in the right way, of course.
And importantly, we have integrated our whole business onto common IT systems as of the last quarter of last year. So all our customers can use our customer-facing portal Keys in terms of their customer journey. As Greg said, significant progress with Vistry Works. So 2,500 homes delivered last year as planned, 4,000 or more this year. So that would be 60% growth. We've got the capacity for 8,000 units. And there it is, beautifully in the sunset. That is our reopened East Midlands factory, which does deliver a lot more of that capacity going forwards. We are manufacturing predominantly open panel at the minute as we grow. But we have all the capability already for hybrid and closed panel in due course. And it is that standard product across all our brands and our affordable range we're looking to put through. But we've also expanded what we're doing.
So roof trusses, joist floor cassettes, firstly for our own timber frame. But we can also use that as a supply for our traditional construction out on sites as well. And yes, where we can get that accelerated delivery helped by the presale, the cost base for that is broadly in line with our masonry construction. We are leading the way in terms of sustainability. And we've combined the best of Countryside and Vistry in terms of strategy, launched our new Carbon Action Plan that supports the roadmap we've got to achieve our science-based targets. These were reset following the combination of the group, and they are now embedded in our incentive plans as well. And that has all been reflected in the A score that we've got from the Carbon Disclosure Project, which puts us in the leadership category where we are at the minute.
Over 600 zero carbon in-use homes. I don't think anybody else can boast that kind of level of production already. And our academies, over 300 graduates we expect to go through our academies this year and growing in terms of delivering, you know, much-needed resource into the sector. And finally, Greg mentioned it. The Vistry Innovation Centre opened last month. And look, the picture on the screen, the best thing about that is that that is the most plotted standard Linden house type built with timber frame that we've then worked with 18 trades, 54 different suppliers to put 100 different solutions into that home. And it really is our future show home. So, please do come and see it, as Greg said. But we are bringing our partners to see that home. We do expect them to buy some of the technology that's in there.
We will be able to deliver that out on site. They will pay for that because they are looking to future-proof their homes. That is another competitive advantage for us. With that, I'll hand you back to Greg to wrap up.
Great. Thanks very much, Earl. So as you can see, an enormous amount going on at the moment. It's all pretty good and exciting stuff. But let's look at market trends. We're in a good build market at the moment. The subdued selling market is good news for Vistry. Let me make it clear now. I'm happy with where the housing market is. I don't want the housing market getting that much better. That wouldn't do Vistry any good whatsoever. I'm okay with where we are today. Our supply chain absolutely gets the new model, like I hope you do as well.
And the reason they get the new model is they love the visibility. They look at Vistry as the mortgage. They look at the other house builders as maybe paying for the holiday. But you've got to pay your mortgage. And that's why they come and give us some really, really strong deals. Because when we say we're going to here is a scheme for 200 units, what if the market changes? No, no, no. We're going to build 200 units. What's quick as you can? We're going to build 200 units as quick as you can. That is what is driving them through. And believe it or not, these are the people that I talk to all the time, my friends. So they absolutely get this model. And that is why they are prepared to give us some very, very good deals.
We are incredibly competitive in the housing market. I'm hearing it from a peer group. Earl said it himself there. So land market, but we are very disciplined. It's got to meet our hurdle rates. And more often than not, we're using other people's, our partners' money. There has been some improvement in the housing market. It's no great shakes, but it is better than it was in the second half of last year. And that's great. And I'm sure it will continue, but as long as it's gradual to improve as we go through this year, going into next year. Traditional RPs definitely are seeing some headwinds, as Stephen said, cost of finance, the management, as well as the financial burden of bringing their homes up to decent standards, their legacy stuff, as well as building safety concerns.
But for-profit RPs and PRS are more than making up for that shortfall there. And as Stephen said, the RPs are telling us themselves, the traditional RPs, that this is a two, maybe three, slowdown on their side. But the numbers don't lie. There has got to be some increase in funding to help deal with the housing crisis, disaster, whatever you want to call it in this country. So current trading and outlook. So, the group is on track to deliver strong growth in completions this year. You won't have heard that before. And we're targeting in excess of 17,500 units by far and away, I would suggest, the biggest house builder in the country. And that's underpinned we've got visibility of that by a forward order book of GBP 4.6 billion. That's 11% up on last year, with GBP 2.1 billion of that coming through in this year.
This year, we will continue all the way through the year to continue to transfer, transition, particularly on our house building side, to a capital-light partnerships model where we fully expect to be cash in cash by the end of the year. Now, we made some bold predictions last September with the announcement of our new strategy. Today, I'm telling you now, I'm more confident than I was in September of last year that we will achieve these goals. That's 5%-8% growth, 40% return on capital employed in the medium- term, and GBP 800 million operating profit in the medium- term with a 12%+ operating margin. So why am I more confident than I was in September? Firstly, the biggest risk we had, I said it last September, getting the right people into the organization.
Well, over the last six months, we've taken on a lot of people. We're taking people on quite easily. Two reasons. One, young people, particularly, young people for me is under 55, by the way. That's young people are particularly like the responsible developer tag that we've got. They like the fact that we're giving, if you like, something back by actually addressing the country's need on affordable housing. We're also seeing, particularly since the start of this year, you know, with regards to housing consolidation, an awful lot of people who are uncertain about their positions, looking to come to somewhere where they see a particularly bright future. So people, I've seen some huge, encouragement over the last six months. Next, land. I thought we would be competitive in the land market. I've looked at it every which way you can.
I'm hearing from the peer group we are incredibly competitive in the land market. We will get the land that we require going forward. You look at what Stephen said, the demand. You know, we've done an awful lot of work leading up to, coming up with a new strategy, obviously. We've done a lot of work since. The demand is growing. The demand is embarrassing for this country. So whether it's the Conservatives or more particularly Labour, I'm pretty sure there is going to be some increased funding into this area. Not that we require it with our growth levels, but I think there will be some increased funding in this area. And as I keep saying, I think we're a year, maybe two years away from a building boom in affordable housing in this country, which is very much needed.
And there won't be another organization that will capitalize on that as much as Vistry. Earl talked about it, the drive for standardization. That is going really, really well. Our big groups, really, really well. I can see it there. We've told everyone standardization is the way to go forward. If you don't want to be in a standardized house builder, maybe you should get off the bus now. We've been as blunt as that with our people. But people are staying. They absolutely want that standardization. And that will massively help our timber frame manufacturing and business, where I've got some really, really high hopes of that going forward. So they're the four main reasons. But I'm going to add to it, and I'm not, being self-indulgent. I've been in the industry for 42 years. That's not talking about it, writing about it.
That's doing building houses all the way through that 42 years to sell to Mr. and Mrs. Smith and doing deals with housing associations and local authorities all the way through that time. And in my gut feel, which I completely rely on, is absolutely telling me that we have got the timing of this transition absolutely spot on right, whether it's politically, timing with the housing market, timing with the, you know, where we are with the crisis that we've got in front of us with regards to affordable housing. We've got it absolutely right. And everything that I'm seeing at the moment coming through is telling me that. So I am really, really encouraged by where we are and the progress that we've made in the last six or seven months with a good set of results in 2023. And we've made a great start to 2024.
So on that, we will take any questions. So if you, you'll be handed a mic. If you give your name, we'll, we'll answer them as effectively as we can. So.
Good morning, Glynis Johnson, Jefferies. Q4, if I may. Clearly, there's going to be lots of parts to that.
I've lost, yeah. I would have expected nothing less.
In terms of, there is a difference between the adjusted and the reported because of the JVs. It's the nature of exactly what you're showing us. But, can you talk to us about where we should anticipate the JVs going in the future? The JVs seem to be making much higher margin as well. So, any kind of sort of color on that would be helpful.
Can we do that? Do you want to take that, Tim?
Okay. So working here, the first part of that, in terms of the JV share, I mean, JVs are a good vehicle, particularly for some of the partner-funded. We haven't got a specific target in terms of JV growth, but we probably will expect a higher proportion of JVs going forward. In terms of the margin, there's no reason why JVs should make a higher margin than other parts of the business. So I'm not sure if there's something in the detail that we need to just work through to unpick that because just by the nature of things, they're not necessarily higher margin.
Okay. Second of all, in terms of, can you talk us through where you're sourcing your land from, where you think it will come from? One of your slides, you know, seems to show that this year half of it came externally, was owned, and the half of it was controlled. Is that open market versus partner? And what was utilized was all owned. Can you just talk us through that?
Do you want to take that, Earl?
Yeah, happily. So, the land bank owned and controlled, owned is as it sounds. Controlled is we've already got a contract on it. So when you say it will have been controlled, then owned, and then through. So it's all our land bank, Glynis, so try not to get too confused. I mean, in terms of the source of land, what did I say? You named the source of land. I think we've got, you know, a really strong position. So it's coming from all sources. So yes, we are absolutely competitive, as I said, in the open market, larger sites in particular. But we will have the best supply of public land coming through, whether that is local authority, housing association. We've talked about regeneration opportunities, throughout. So it is coming from every source of land you can think, including, obviously, development on somebody else's land.
We don't necessarily need to take the land.
I'd also add that Homes England are probably our biggest single source where price is important, but there are a lot of other things they take into consideration. And I would also say the land market over the next 12 months is interesting because when you look at the number of units that house builders are currently producing, including ones that they've announced during the course of this week, whereas you might have thought there's a five, maybe, well, roundabout a five-year land bank, they might be looking at if you look at the number of units they've just done and the number of units they're talking about this year, maybe a, as much as a eight-year land bank, which is too long.
I can already see some opportunities for some swaps and some divestment of some of the land banks that other house builders have got around the country.
So sorry, just to tie you down, rather than just the sources, proportions, the largest proportion comes from Homes England.
I would say it does, yeah.
And then it's the affordable, it's the registered providers, and then it's the open market.
No, I would have thought it was the open market would be bigger. So there's a number of our larger sites are still coming through the open market, but we are purchasing them alongside a partner. So in terms of how we are purchasing and securing them, it's through some of the structures that we've talked about.
Okay. Thirdly, just in terms of partnership delivery, where is it now? Where are you, where, where have you slotted it into? It used to be a separate category. Now it's not. It obviously makes a much higher return on capital employed, almost infinite in return on capital employed. So it would be useful to understand where it is and how that's influencing the return on capital employed.
I'd say.
So it's as part of our partner-funded business. The way we tend to describe it internally is 100% partner-funded. So the models are the same, but as you say, higher capital, low capital employed, so high ROCE, but lower margin. But we can have that, the customer mix can be, you can do some with PRS, largely RPs. So most of it's within the RP bucket.
It's still 15%?
It could be, could be more in some regions. Geographically, it can make more sense in areas of higher land value. But at the moment, it's slightly, it's somewhere between 15%-20%, something like that.
Yeah. Okay. And the last one, you'll be glad to hear, the order book and the preferred bidder, what timeframe does that actually stretch over?
That most of those preferred bidders will convert in over the course of the next three months.
For delivery when?
For over, I'm after, yeah. I'll ever deliver it over two to three years.
The preferred bidders or the order book?
The preferred bidder.
The preferred bidders. The order book is over two years.
The unwind of the order book is in this, is in slide 47. You can see the unwind.
Perfect.
Did you not get to that page? No. Will?
Thanks, Will Jones, Redburn Atlantic. The first, if you could just remind us, please, on gross margin by the four buckets that you've laid out. If you were to targeting making the 12 operating, how would those four stack up at gross? And does the extra affordable you've highlighted today do better than the Section 106?
Yeah. Go on, Tim.
So, we're not going to provide margin guidance by those four buckets because what we want to try and simplify the way this is modeled. And we don't want. We look at this on a blended basis. So, we're not going to provide margins by those different categories. In terms of clearly.
So, so we do, but we're not telling you. That's what, that's what I think Tim's just said.
Well, we were trying to make your life easier to avoid your models having four sections in. You're going to have two, one or two sections in. Yeah.
Second, just understanding the sales rate a little better.
Yeah.
GBP 0.7 year to date. I think nearly one for the whole of last year. Clearly, the bulk sales, when they come in, are a big, big influence. But just, just if you can help us understand.
I would say, the GBP 0.72, I think it was, for this year, I would be so far about GBP 0.45-GBP 0.5 would be private. The remainder would be portfolio, as we're calling it.
Got you. Coming back to the sites, the 200 sales, roughly, and the 350 built.
Yeah.
When you make a sale on the 150 that are forward-sold, how does that influence the sales rate we see? Did you say that you've got 150 that where you've basically sold it upfront? Is that right?
Yeah. Well, so that's sold up. Do you want to take that, Earl?
I can't. So look, yes, where we've got what are designated private units and we sell them, you know, we do put the bulk sales through that sales rate. I mean, we're very open about that in terms of it going through. But obviously, it's not straightforward in terms of, you know, a number of our developments, we pre-sell the whole lot before we even secure it. No, we don't put that anywhere near our sales rate. And so I think what, as Tim said, what we're going to try and give you is, you know, the volumes, etc., in the buckets, as Tim described on that slide earlier, and give you that consistently to try and drive it through. I mean, the sales rate, so we were already 67% pre-sold last year. You know, we could easily be a little bit more than that this year.
You know, the market is subdued. So we are driving a sales rate, but we will supplement it. You know, we've talked the PRS market is stronger we've seen today. So we will supplement it where we need to. So therefore, you know, that's how we're going to continue to drive a blend through the business.
Great. And then just big picture, as you think about the target of GBP 800 million medium- term, roughly GBP 500 million base, the biggest levers, as you go from one to the other, it sounds from the way you're talking today that it's probably volume, but all three contributing.
Yeah. It's volume and standardization, which will drive through further cost savings. Probably an overhead saving as well.
Thanks. Aynsley Lammin from Investec. I think I've just got two, actually. Obviously, you talked about the sources of land. Just interested, do you get more kind of favorable treatment in terms of planning? Is it quicker to get through the system? Everybody else moaning about that planning. Just wondered how, what are the risks for you to kind of maintain the land coming through and planning?
I noticed this hugely when we had the house building business and partnerships business leading up to September last year. So, planning is a, you know, complete disaster in the country. It has been for a number of years. A big part of that is the fact that local authorities just don't have the people to deal with. So one of the hardest things in the world to do is have an argument with somebody who's not there. You know, you've got to have somebody on the other side of the table to have a ding-dong with. If they're not there, it's difficult. What we have found, and it's continued to happen in the six months since, the partnerships team still very difficult with planning, but the partnerships team had people there more often to have that debate with.
That's because the partnerships team always took with them in the main somebody from a housing association or from a PRS provider, what that was the partner of the local authority, or we were doing it with a local authority. So the partnerships will, I believe it is more straightforward to get planning, but still incredibly difficult, than house building, which is, you know, who knows what happens there. So yes, it, it's better because we are giving something that the local authority want and working with a partner more often than not that is affiliated in some way to that local authority.
Great. And then just on the kind of, you hinted quite strongly that we should expect maybe some share buybacks in the second half. Just wondered where you're thinking is around leverage, you know, kind of the balance and what criteria you use for share buybacks and bringing that average leverage down quickly in the near- term?
That's the conversation we're going to have. I mean, we've got all of these capital initiatives going on. They're going on as we speak. Well, we expect to make some big progress on that in this end of this first half going into the second half. That's going to throw up an amount of cash. And there will be a debate, particularly with Tim and I and then with the board with regards to are we better off using that cash to reduce, have no average month-end debt going into 2025, or is there a compromise where we have less and we do some more share buybacks, which will depend on where the share price is at that particular time.
But yeah, I'll stick with, I personally think there will be more on top of the capital allocation plan in the second half of the year.
Just on that, the land creditors still happy , to kind of run with GBP 700 million, roughly? Is that the.
Yeah. I think as we grow, we're happy to grow the proportion of land creditors in line with the growth of the business. And of course, that'll be one of the considerations when we look at the, you know, the distributions. We will consider, you know, our financial commitments, which include land creditors, as we decide make those decisions.
But as Tim said as well, we are very confident of the GBP 1 billion returns.
Ami Galla from Citi, just two questions from me. One was on the capital light model that you've kind of emphasized here. Can you remind us as to how much of the, how much of forward funding do you get typically on a project? And does the overall medium-term view on running a capital light model depend on the planning system also running quite efficiently in the future? The second one was on standardization. You've made a clear point that that's an area of focus here. Having three brands in open market, how practical is it to achieve those standardization benefits that you're looking at the build level?
Okay. So, on the standardisation one, it is pretty practical because it's more to do with the specification inside than the actual construction of the property itself. So we're going to end up with somewhere between 45 and 70, I think, standard house types. 45 will be the core. They will be the house types we use. We will just put a different specification in to a Bovis, Linden, and Countryside home. I think that's good enough on that. But Tim, do you want to take the financial?
So, the first part of your question was around the upfront funding. And clearly, they help fund the land purchase. We will try and maximise the amount of money that we get as part of that initial wave and to get, you know, ideally to get more land funding than the land has cost to help our capital allocation. And then as we go through the process, they'll fund on a valuation basis as we build it, build it out. Ideally, that's on some sort of monthly valuation where we can ensure that we're getting the money in from our partners no later than we're paying the money out to our, you know, subcontractors. So that's the funding bit. The second part of your question, Ami, was about whether there's impact on the planning, please?
Yeah. I mean, does it essentially, you know, typically, you would probably not have to carry as much land bank across the business if the planning system is better in the future? Is that one of the.
That's certainly one of the factors. This is one of the reasons why our land bank will migrate to have a higher proportion of controlled, where we're not able to put money out because we're sourcing that land through partners. Hence, we're getting the benefit that we don't actually need to spend any money until we've got the planning and we're actually buying the land.
And if I can add to that, one of the issues that, if you've got your traditional models that you're looking at, there's talk about, you know, can we go beyond 20,000 units? No one's done 20,000 units before. Nobody's sold and built more than 20,000 houses a year. So more often than not now, we are looking at big schemes, 2,000 houses. Go back to yesterday on the house building world, it's the question is, how quickly can we sell those 2,000 houses? That's a, you know, can we do it at 0.5, 0.6, 0.7? Nobody is going to go building as quick as you like because your work in progress levels will be dramatically high. It takes away all of your flexibility. You might want to change the scheme later on.
With our model now, 2,000 houses, more often than not, we're going to go on there with 35%, maybe even slightly less, for sale. That's a real small element. We'll be happy to just charge on and build. And basically, the units we'll be building going forward, we won't be building 5- and 6-bedroom houses. It'll be 2-, 3-, small 4-bedroom houses. There's only so much that can go wrong with that particular model. So it's bread and butter, private housing. The majority of it is going to be pre-sold. So we'll be looking at that scheme going, right, that's a different question. How quickly can we build that scheme? We could end up with five compounds, five site managers, 200 units, get it all done within a couple of years. That can be absolutely done, particularly that's without all the standardization.
So, buying the bigger sites means we can, the reason we can go to 900 units is I would expect, as we go forward, our individual business units to actually be, yes, they've got five sites on that, one big site, but it really is one big core site. That's an awful lot easier to manage. You know, one roundabout to get in, one set of drainage connections, one set of service connections. It's an awful lot easier to manage than a site here, here, here, and around about the place. That is why we are confident we can do it. But the question is, you know, can you build quicker than what you can sell? Of course, we can. We can build a hell of a lot quicker than what we can sell.
But why would you, with work in progress, you know, being a big, contingent of what we do, cash constraints, why would you build quicker than what you can sell? We're not in that game anymore.
Thank you.
Chris? It's on that one there? So, well, now Clyde was quicker than you, Chris.
Oh, Chris. That's a first.
Clyde Lewis at Peel Hunt. I think I've got three, if I may, maybe four, with a client friction on a couple of bits. But earlier standardization, the efficiency benefits that you're talking about there, are they included in the synergies that you're actually talking about, the GBP 25 million that would come through in 2025 and GBP 15 million this year, or is that on top of those numbers?
I would say it's on top. So in terms of changing the way we're working to do it all the same way, and we're looking at every function, we've got some thoughts on that, you know, but I would say it's on top of that.
It is, yeah.
Okay. Follow-up to that then is, would you like to put a scale on that number?
Good question, Clyde. At this point, no would be the right answer to that. I mean, look, we've launched these, you know, at the beginning of this year. So, I'm sure we will come back next time around and give you a better view. But that's where we are. They are up and running in terms of, you know, initial ideas of which direction we're going in. That's where we're at.
If I can just add to that, I think while they're not in the GBP 25 million, they are considered in our medium-term target of getting to above 12% operating margin. So, just stick with that and don't add anything more.
Okay. Second one was on probably one for you, Tim, I think, receivables and WIP. Obviously, you know, you did see a step up in terms of what you had last year. Will that rise again this year, and where does that, I suppose, peak out as the sort of model sort of shifts fully across?
So I think in terms of the WIP in particular, we would expect that to come down this year as the releasing of the house building land bank and the other capital efficiency measures that Earl talked about largely come out of inventory or WIP during the course of the year. So we'd expect that to drive that down. In terms of the receivables and to a certain extent WIP, a lot is just around the timing. So I would love the business to be doing more of their deals earlier in the year so we wouldn't have such a big receivables balance at the end of the year. But I think for now, we should just assume that that is a steady-state receivables number.
Okay. The last one's probably for Stephen. You're the best partnerships business in the market, but you're only dealing with 97 of 202 of the RPs. Why aren't you dealing with the other 105?
Well, it's a good question.
Yeah. Why aren't we?
Yeah. Thanks for that. Yeah. No, it's a very good question. And there are definitely traditional registered providers that we should be working with that we're not. So there are some with balance sheets, with aspirations, with capacity that we haven't yet developed sustained programs with. And that's an area that we're focused on trying to deliver. So we want to do more with our existing partners, but there are certainly new partners, traditional and for-profits, out there that we want to do more with. So I see that as a—it's a good question because it's encouraging our further expansion. So we'll get on with it.
I think the bigger growth area there is going to be with local authorities, isn't it?
We, yeah, you would expect local authorities to come forward with, using their assets, wanting to really commission for the reasons that I gave earlier around the fact that temporary homelessness is weighing so heavily on them. So local authorities, we're working with around 30. There's an opportunity to do more.
Is that over 300?
We've got two or three local authorities we've concluded deals with recently. We've got deals with Bristol, with London Borough of Kingston, with Barking and Dagenham, all in the last three months. Today, we've actually got a site launch to deliver over 520 homes with London Borough of Brent. There's four good examples of local authority momentum our momentum working with local authorities on delivery.
Thanks, Clyde. Do you want to go to Chris?
Morning, yeah. Chris Millington at Numis. First one, just wanted to ask around pricing and discounts. You mentioned it's got a little bit better at the start of this year. Perhaps you can just talk around the PRS and the private market in that respect.
So the private market, we would say, you know, headline prices maybe came back 1% or 2% last year and 3%-5% use of incentives. I would say headline prices in the first, whatever it is, 12 weeks of this year are stable and incentives are 3%-4%. So that's that. With regards to deals, with regards to portfolio deals, you know, we've said 5%-15% last year, maybe slightly more in the fourth quarter. I would actually say that gap is narrowing. So I would say 5%, but probably on average 12%-13%.
That's helpful. Thank you. Next one's just on Linden First. Just understanding practically how it gets up to scale, what it requires from you on funding. Is the third-party funding in mind? Perhaps just a bit of detail around Linden First.
Okay. So, Linden First is a for-profit registered provider. In order to deliver 1,000 homes, it's going to need capitalization around GBP 150 million-GBP 175 million. So our approach has been to strengthen that board to get it into a fit-for-purpose, scalable vehicle. And we've spent some time over the last six months doing just that. And what we're now intending to do is go out to the market. So we're working with that board on developing a prospectus to bring in that third-party finance for that vehicle to be established and capitalized. There would then be a relationship between that vehicle and Vistry, and potentially that vehicle with others, because that's what the regulator will require, in terms of commissioning further delivery. So what it essentially does is it adds to the sector's capacity. A first step would be around about 1,000 homes over two years.
That's the scale of capitalization that it would need. It's an absolute project for us to deliver over the next eight months. So I would expect you will see opportunities for transactions between Linden First and Vistry to take place during this year.
Become one of our bigger customers going forward.
How's that work from a balance sheet point of view? Will it appear on the balance sheet given it's third-party funded, or does it stay off balance sheet?
It's such a stay off balance sheet. That's one of the fundamental underpinnings of it is to keep it off the balance sheet.
Understood. Understood. Last one's just on grant funding. I think you're about 170 at the moment in that, that sort of region. Has it got the potential to go higher, and how's it unwind as well? I presume it's maybe on a per-unit basis as you deliver these?
It is. So it's paid, quarterly in arrears, which seems a long while to wait for it, but it is paid quarterly in arrears. So we're doing well within our programme. We're running ahead of the original forecast programme for committing that. So as you'd expect, we're successfully doing that. We've actually pitched for some additional funding, and we, with our partners, were able to achieve some additional funding during last year for delivery. Homes England are waiting for, an incoming government and a settlement which would allow them to describe the arc of their post-2026 programme. So at the moment, we're involved in a programme for delivery to 2026. Over the course of next year, the next successor programme will be developed, and it's obviously a political decision in terms of the degree of that that is funded.
But we're getting in place early discussions with Homes England and with our partners on delivering post-2025, post-2026 within that program. We have also got a bid in at the moment for any additional funding that might be available during 2024 in order to supplement the work that we've already got with our partners. So our work with Sage is a good example of how we want to capture additional funding in order to expand our existing portfolio, work with them.
But again, I think it from a competitive advantage. So we're aware of other house builders who have made bids for grant and haven't got it. If you showed some of our old house building businesses what we have to go do to get grant, they would what are you exactly talking about? This is double Dutch, man. I have no idea what you're talking about. You also have to be set up that you get inspected because it's regulated. So people will come in and do audits, external audits. House building just ain't used to it. So that 170 is 170 more than any other house builder because we're the only one that has at the present moment in time. The Sage deal that we announced, Leaf, the 2,800 units last year, that wouldn't have been able to be done without a grant program.
No other house builder would have been able to do that. We were able to do that because of that grant.
The only other thing I would add.
Unless they would take a complete haircut, as it were, which they wouldn't.
We have the other advantage that we've always delivered. So the really important aspect with grant funding is that you make sure you meet and honor your promises in terms of expenditure. We're in a great position for all the reasons we've talked about to do that. We also have additional grant in respect of MMC. So there's an alignment there directly of grant funding with the additional use of Vistry Works, which really helps us.
We get additional grant. Where we get housing grant, we get additional grant if we use MMC.
That's great. Thank you.
Thank you. Oh. Gregor.
Thank you. Gregor Kuglitsch from UBS. I've got a few questions, a shorter term, some longer term. So maybe just on the short- term, you've obviously signaled a bit of a margin drop this year. Can you just sort of give us a bit of a range on that? Are you thinking kind of 11-ish, for 2024?
We'll just take that, Gregor. Tim?
Yeah. That's about the right range.
Okay. In terms of the EBIT guidance, the GBP 800, is there sort of more thoughts on the sort of timing of that, now that we're sort of, I guess, six months on and the market's sort of stabilized? So if you just give us a bit of a date.
We're saying before 2028.
Okay. And then third question on debt. So I think you were suggesting maybe next year you could be average debt free. I don't know if that was over.
No, I said we could get closer to being average net debt free. That would be one of the considerations we would take if we were to do a further, you know, capital distribution in the second half of the year. That would be the debate.
Yeah. So we're going to have cash. What we've said is we will be in cash at the end of this year. We've said at the time of September, all things being equal, we would have no month-end debt by year-end 2025, isn't it, or 2026?
No, no year-end debt after this year. So we're net, net cash positive. In terms of average net debt, our plan is to reduce that is to eliminate that in the medium- term. We will still have debts during the course of the year because that, that average we talk about month-end net debt, there will be points both at month-end but particularly intra-month where there is debt. So we're still going to need facilities. There'll still be finance costs. And then the debate that we're going to have, you know, following up, as we talked about with Aynsley's question during the course of the summer, will be that balance between distributions and debt levels, which we still need to iron out in detail.
Yeah.
Yeah. So I guess asking it differently, the GBP 2.3 billion of capital that you've got, how quickly does that go down to sub-GBP 2 billion? Is it, I mean, obviously, this year, you're aiming to take out GBP 200 million-ish, right?
Yeah. So what we'd be looking to do is try and get down below GBP 2 billion earlier in the 5-year cycle, in order to build up. So I would expect that we're going to be building up capital in the last couple of years of that plan. Therefore, we need to be at sort of, I know, GBP 1.8 billion, GBP 1.9 billion by the end of 2026.
Okay. And then, Greg, you sort of said don't really fancy a market recovery because it would sort of cost pressures on you and perhaps more pressure on land too. So, I guess, is your view that, let's say, if there's a cyclical market recovery, I don't know, mortgage rates come down, do you kind of the benefit you get on the private sales, you kind of lose on the cost side of land, or are you?
We'll get the benefit on the private sales, but not as much as a pure house builder because there's less of it. We'd get the benefit on PRS because PRS takes a view on where the market is going. It's just the portfolio deals outside of PRS where we wouldn't gain. Now, what I'm trying to say is, from a timing perspective, we are going through a major upheaval as we sit here at the present moment in time. And I really don't want a housing market boom in the next 12 months. If the housing market really took off, and I don't expect it to take off in a boom, but really took off in 12 months' time, the organisation would be far more settled, far more stable, and would be able to deal with it.
I'm talking about not a profit margin perspective. I'm just talking about at the present moment in time we can attract people. We need people. At this moment in time, the last thing we need is difficulties on site with regards to getting, as we saw in 2021 and 2022, and how do we get bricks and blocks and all the rest of it. It's much more straightforward to build. That is what we've needed over the last six months. As we go over the next 12 months, every day that goes by, we'll be in a better position to deal with those fluctuations and difficulties in the market because our change will be more complete than it is today.
Thank you. Then maybe just a final question on the CMA. I guess what your thoughts are as to what's going on. I mean, obviously, there's sort of alleging information sharing. I'm hearing that's sort of on affordable housing potentially. I don't know if that's really true.
Sorry. I'm hearing?
And what kind of, well, that it's basically on joint sites with affordable housing, that there's information sharing on pricing and things like that. I don't know if that's true. But if you care to comment on how you think about the risk and obviously holding back some capital, just in case. It's obviously if you apply 10% to GBP 4 billion, it's obviously a large number. So I appreciate those comments.
Yeah. Well, I'll take that. We're in a good place on it, having been involved in the construction one, whenever it was, back in 2010. So I know how this all kind of pans out. We have absolutely worked with the CMA as other house builders over the last 12 months. And we will continue to work proactively with the CMA over the next however long a period it takes. But standing here today, I'm relatively comfortable that, you know and maybe I wasn't from a construction perspective that, you know, if we are doing things anti-competitive, I don't think we're very good at it. So that's where I would be.
Thank you. Thank you. Jason from HSBC. I'm just going back to the issue of standardization. It's obviously an important stepping stone on the route to the GBP 800 million. Can you just give a sense of how well adopted that is in the business today and how far you have to take it in order to get to that GBP 800 million? And then just secondly, on costs, I think you start to lap some of the initiatives that you took in the summer of last year and then in the months ahead. How do you think about the cost outlook, once you're kind of through that annualization of those initiatives? Thanks.
Do you want to take the cost one, Earl?
Can do so. Joe, I think you were talking about sort of looking even further forward because our cost base today is lower than it was last year. But if I look further forward, look, what would I say? The, some of our suppliers are putting increases into the market that we are not, you know, suffering through our business. And that does reflect all the things we've, we've talked about this morning. So look, there is a little bit of cost pressure from, from labor and materials further down the line, but we're going to be in a better place than, than anyone else. And that's what we're still seeing right as we speak today.
Then on the standardisation, I think to a lesser or greater extent, we've got 26 business units, and they're all doing things slightly differently and in some cases quite a lot differently. So I think the potential there when we standardise it and bring it all in and Mike Woolliscroft, sat in front of you, is dealing with this. He's head of the bigs. But sounds a big title, head of the bigs. But no, I think it's an immense opportunity for us because, you know, it was Bovis, 7 business units, and they weren't doing everything together. You've brought in Galliford Try. They certainly weren't doing everything together and different to Bovis. And then you've got Countryside. So we have 26 business units doing things a lot differently or subtly differently.
Over the next 12 months, that has got to change. It will change. And we'll have the benefits of that. I agree with Tim and Earl. We can't put a number to that, but I think it will be more than a minor saving for the organization going forward. Brilliant. There you go. Nearly an hour and a half. Well done, everyone. Thanks very much, and have a good rest of the day. Thank you.