Vistry Slashes Profit Outlook as Half-Year Losses Balloon

Vistry Group, one of Britain's biggest housebuilders, has slashed its annual profit expectations after half-year losses ballooned while the company grappled with a £600m pile of unsold homes.

The profit downgrade landed alongside a further cost-cutting plan that includes job losses. The firm blamed poor summer sales of private homes for the deterioration, according to its half-year results statement.

Adam Daniel, the new chief executive of the Bovis Homes and Countryside owner, struck a defiant tone as he confronted the scale of the problem. He insisted that "the issues can be fixed", setting out a detailed turnaround plan designed to arrest the decline.

The plan's most significant strategic move is a withdrawal from private home sales in south-east England. Vistry will also slim its operations with the aim of becoming a more focused builder delivering 12,000 homes a year. The job losses announced alongside the retreat form part of a broader cost-cutting programme, the company said.

The £600m inventory of unsold homes sits at the centre of Vistry's difficulties. That stockpile weighed on the half-year results, which showed losses ballooning and forced management to cut its expectations for full-year profit.

Daniel, who has taken the top job amid the downturn, framed the reset as a program of targeted fixes rather than an existential reckoning. His diagnosis: the business has operational problems that disciplined execution can resolve, and the route to resolution runs through concentration — fewer markets, fewer homes, lower costs.

The retreat from private sales in the south-east marks a sharp contraction of the group's footprint in one of England's most expensive housing markets. Combined with the target of 12,000 completions a year, the strategy signals that Vistry intends to be a smaller, leaner housebuilder than the merged Bovis-Countryside entity had previously aimed to become.

Poor summer trading in private homes triggered the latest downgrade, underlining the fragility of demand in the segment Vistry is now partially exiting. The company's difficulties reflect a brutal stretch for Britain's volume housebuilders, with buyers staying cautious and unsold stock accumulating on balance sheets.

For investors, the immediate question is whether the turnaround plan can stabilise profitability before the cost cuts compound the revenue lost from pulling out of the south-east private market. Daniel's assertion that "the issues can be fixed" will now be tested against the pace at which the £600m unsold inventory clears and the 12,000-homes-a-year target takes shape.

The coming quarters will show whether a slimmer Vistry can convert a shrinking footprint into restored margins, or whether further downgrades follow.