Persimmon revenues slip as fewer homes completed

The FTSE 100 housebuilder said revenue came in at £1.8bn for the six months ending June 30, a 5% fall from the same period last year, as legal completions declined from 8,072 to 7,584.

Meanwhile, the average sale price increased 1% to £216,950.

The group said its underlying housing operating margin of 30.8%, an increase from 29.7%, will be a reasonable guide for the first half of 2019.

Persimmon is currently focused on improving its customer service after putting a number of initiatives in place to deliver improvements, such as giving customers greater accuracy of anticipated moving-in dates by adopting a targeted approach to the timing of new home sales releases on certain sites and plots where demand is particularly strong.

Chief executive Dave Jenkinson said: "I am pleased that there are some clear early signs that our focus on increasing the quality and service delivered to our customers is beginning to bear fruit, with some encouraging improvements being made right across the business. Although we are still in the early days of our improvement plans our customer satisfaction rating, as measured by the HBF, has increased during the period."

Jenkinson added that the company has entered the second half with a well progressed build programme, healthy rates of sale on site and an encouraging forward sales position.

Analysts at Peel Hunt said the company's new strategy of an increase in build and slower releases is likely to result in a bigger skew to second-half sales, completions and profits than in previous years, which carries an incremental risk in terms of market conditions amid heightening Brexit uncertainty.

However, the analysts saw limited changes to forecasts due to a mix shift of slightly lower volumes being offset by slightly higher margins.

Persimmon's shares were down 1.69% at 1,954.00p at 0813 BST.