Vistry Group is preparing to become a smaller and more geographically focused housebuilder after reporting a £661.3m statutory pre-tax loss for the first half of 2026 and completing a wide-ranging review of its operating model.
The group recorded an adjusted pre-tax loss of £83.3m for the six months to 30 June, reversing an £80.6m profit a year earlier. Reported revenue fell to £1.42bn from £1.64bn, while adjusted revenue declined 9% to £1.70bn.
The statutory loss includes a £475m non-cash impairment of goodwill and an additional £73.2m building safety provision. Vistry completed 6,304 homes during the period, down 8% from 6,889, while net debt increased from £293.1m to £468.8m.
Chief executive Adam Daniels, who took the role in April, has concluded an operational review that will reduce the number of Vistry operating regions from 25 to 12 and target approximately 12,000 completions a year over the medium term.
Daniels said the review showed that “our execution, regional discipline and capital allocation have not been consistent enough”.
The revised strategy retains Vistry’s mixed-tenure model, under which developments combine homes sold on the open market with affordable and privately rented housing funded through institutional and housing-sector partners. The company intends to target a tenure mix of about 60% partner-funded homes and 40% open-market sales.
Greater emphasis will be placed on the North, Midlands, and West, where Vistry believes its model is performing more consistently. Its South East operations are due to adopt a fully pre-sold approach, reducing exposure to speculative private sales, although existing joint ventures are expected to continue open-market sales while developments complete.
The company also plans to reduce its owned land bank from around 51,000 plots to approximately 36,000, simplify its range of house types and brands, and apply tighter controls over new land purchases and capital allocation.
Those changes reflect the cash pressure that has become increasingly visible across the business. Open-market conditions deteriorated during the summer as affordability constraints, lower consumer confidence, and broader economic uncertainty reduced private reservations. Vistry said its open-market sales rate slowed to 0.3 reservations per outlet per week.
The group has also been discounting completed homes to convert inventory into cash. That contributed to the adjusted first-half loss alongside around £50m of early costs and write-offs associated with the chief executive’s review.
Vistry expects the restructuring to generate £50m of annual overhead savings from fewer regions, flatter organisational structures, and lower volumes. That comes on top of £25m of annual savings already identified through a voluntary exit programme and recruitment freeze. The combined cost of delivering those measures during 2026 is expected to be around £40m.
The group has lowered its year-end cash expectations and is targeting a broadly neutral cash position at 31 December. It has also revised down its full-year profit outlook after deciding not to pursue some partner transactions on their original terms.
Excluding further strategic charges, Vistry expects adjusted pre-tax profit of around £165m for 2026. It expects approximately £470m of additional full-year impacts associated with measures including the exit from open-market exposure in the South East and changes to site strategies within its land bank.
The balance-sheet reset comes during a difficult period for UK housebuilding. Higher mortgage costs and affordability pressure have reduced demand for private homes, while planning delays, construction inflation, and remediation obligations continue to affect capital requirements across the sector.
Vistry’s dependence on partnerships provides some insulation from private buyer demand because housing associations, local authorities, institutional investors, and other partners can purchase homes in volume. The review nevertheless shows that a partnership-led model does not remove the need to control land exposure, work in progress, regional overheads, and the timing of cash receipts.
The affordable housing market is becoming a larger part of the company’s forward strategy. Vistry has secured a £350m direct grant award under the first wave of the Social and Affordable Housing Programme for 2026 to 2036, which it says will support direct delivery of more than 3,000 affordable homes.
That provides a clearer pipeline for partner-backed development, but execution remains the immediate priority. Vistry’s forward order book, using a tightened definition that includes only exchanged or otherwise legally contracted orders, stands at £3.3bn, compared with £3.7bn a year earlier.
The company is targeting average daily net debt of around £500m in 2027, falling below £400m in 2028 and towards £300m by 2029. Shareholder distributions will be reconsidered only after sufficient progress has been made on debt reduction and capital efficiency.
The reset leaves the mixed-tenure strategy intact but changes the scale and discipline around it. Vistry intends to operate across fewer regions, hold less land, build at lower volumes, and rely more heavily on areas where partner-backed housing can provide predictable demand while management works to restore cash generation.
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