Britain’s Vistry Group has named Tim Lawlor as its next chief financial officer.
Lawlor is currently the CFO at homebuilder Countryside Partnerships, which Vistry bought last month, and replaces Earl Sibley, who is assuming the position of chief operating officer.
The changes to the board of directors will be effective from 11 November.
Britain’s Vistry Group Plc has announced Tim Lawlor will join the housebuilder as its next chief financial officer
Sibley will remain a board director, while Graham Prothero will step down as chief operating officer to take up the position of CEO of MJ Gleeson.
Prothero will remain working with the group until 31 December, focused on the ‘effective transition of his responsibilities’.
Vistry shares were up 0.93 per cent at midday Friday, trading at 544.50p.
In September Vistry reported the average selling price of one of its new-built homes rose 5 per cent to £369,000 in the first half, helping it offset surging building costs and post a 14 per cent rise in profits to £189.9million.
The FTSE 250-listed housebuilder, which recently bought rival Countryside Partnerships in a £1.25billion deal, said it sold 5,409 homes in the six months to June, up 5 per cent on last year.
Adjusted revenue rose 5.5 per cent year-on-year to £1.3billion.
It said it had strengthened its forward sales book, which was up 10 per cent on last year at £2.3billion.
However, the group, formerly known as Bovis Homes, said it was seeing some ‘early signs of settling’ in the land market ‘after a more heightened period of demand’.
House prices have risen sharply since the start of the pandemic, boosting housebuilders’ profits, but there are starting to be signs of a cooling in the market as the cost of living crisis takes a toll on people’s finances.
Indeed, this week it was revealed house prices rose at the slowest pace since early in the coronavirus crisis last month, with rising mortgage rates starting to bite.
Enquiries by new buyers fell for a fifth month in row and expectations for the year ahead suggest a slight fall in prices, according to the Royal Institution of Chartered Surveyors’ (RICS) monthly survey.
