Vistry suspends divi, pulls guidance, shuts building sites
By Frank Prenesti
Date: Wednesday 25 Mar 2020
(Sharecast News) - Home builder Vistry suspended its dividend, scrapped guidance and started shutting down construction sites on Wednesday as it dealt with the coronavirus impact.
The company, formerly known as Bovis Group, said it had seen a negative impact on performance as a result of the Covid-19 pandemic in the past week.
Vistry said it had decided to close its sales offices and had started to shutter building sites after the government ordered a nationwide lockdown on Monday to stymie the progress of the virus. It also stopped land purchases and started to rein in expenditure.
"We will remain in close communication with all our existing and prospective customers remotely, with our business remaining open to taking new reservations and progressing exchanges," the company said in a statement.
"The handover of completed units scheduled for the next two weeks will continue where our customers would like to move in, and we will follow strict health and safety protocols. Our site teams are ensuring the protection of partially completed works to avoid deterioration or loss of value during site closure, facilitating orderly resumption as soon as possible."
The group said it had forward reservations worth ?1.35bn of which ?900m was contracted and its partnerships contracting forward orders totalled ?800m.
"We will be submitting valuations totalling around ?95m for work we have completed in March to our contracting clients, mainly local authorities and registered providers of affordable housing, noting that the government has issued guidance for payment," Vistry said.
The group had committed banking facilities of ?750m, including ?100m of private placement notes, with maturities out to 2027.
Net debt at March 24 was ?435m of net debt including the private placement notes, in line with our expectations at the time of the acquisition of the Linden Homes and Vistry Partnerships businesses. Vistry said it held ?90m in cash with a further ?225m of undrawn facilities available.
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