Right. Good morning, all. Let's make a start, and welcome to the half year results of Vistry Group 2023, and importantly, our strategy update. Delighted to be joined today by the big guns, Tim Lawlor, Earl Sibley, and we've even brought along Stephen Teagle, the CEO of Countryside Partnerships. Stephen is so enthusiastic, he positively makes me feel and look miserable at times. So you'll enjoy his section when we get to it. So today, introduction by me, financial review, obviously, Tim. Strategy update will be myself, Earl, and Stephen. Capital allocation back to Tim, which is another update today, and I'll finish off with an outlook. So as the two runners used to say, "An absolute packed agenda tonight," so let's get on with it. So let's start with the evolution of this strategy. There is an acute shortage of affordable housing in this country, and a market commentator in the last week or two has actually said, "It's no longer a housing crisis, it's a housing disaster." That's where we, where this country is. Vistry, I'm delighted to say, is firmly established as a leading, the leading provider of affordable mixed tenure housing. The group is to focus its operations fully on a successful, high return, capital light partnerships model. It positions the group to deliver sustained growth output, and it also has the market resilience, which we've demonstrated with our Partnerships business over the last few years. The implementation of the strategy is absolutely well developed, and the businesses will fully merge by the end of 2023. It's important that all the senior management team are on board with the new strategy and structure. You know, we've had to make some very, very difficult decisions. Even the senior management team that have been adversely affected by the new strategy, have all said to me they completely get the strategic logic of what we're doing, which is a good endorsement, I think. Synergies and benefits from the Countryside combination to be retained. So we're currently saying from Countryside, a full run rate of GBP 60 million in 2024, and we're expecting further synergies on top of that, of GBP 25 million per annum from this simplified operating structure. So if you just look at that in the cold light today, and we'll be expecting to beat these numbers, that's GBP 85 million worth of synergies, if you like, directly related to the acquisition of Countryside. The group's medium-term targets, 40% return on capital, which is our number one priority. Revenue growth of between 5% and 8% per annum, an operating margin of +12%, and an operating profit of GBP 800 million in the medium term. They're pretty much all what we said at the time of the acquisition of Countryside, but that GBP 800 million will now come 100% from Partnerships, as opposed to 50/50 Partnerships and Housebuilding. Our capital allocation policy has been confirmed, and we're targeting one billion capital, GBP 1 billion capital distribution over the next three years with the elimination of net debt. So we are addressing the country's acute need for affordable mixed tenure housing, and that's at the core of Vistry being a responsible, and you'll keep hearing that word today, responsible developer. So our half year performance. First thing to say, our half year performance is in line with our expectations that we set at the start of the year against more challenging conditions. The integration of Countryside has proceeded well ahead of our expectations. Partnerships have seen strong levels of demand, demonstrating market resilience once again, with the half year revenues up by 7.1% on a pro forma basis against half year 2022, and operating margin up 130 basis points to 11.5%. So a really strong performance there from Partnerships in a really strong market. Housebuilding operated well, particularly against the peer group, in far more challenging market conditions, with revenues down 28.3% on a pro forma basis and the gross margin down to 19.8%. But importantly, maybe when some of you draw parallels to what happened with Countryside, we have a very good Housebuilding business. Housebuilding leveraged the group's relationships with RPs and local authorities to increase delivery, supporting the sales rate, and that's aligned with the group's new strategy in the first half of the year. Strong progress on renegotiating supply chain arrangements, and we fully expect to offset, again, unlike the peer group, any inflationary build costs in 2023 with post-synergy savings. And I am confident now that we will actually see some net deflation in the second half of this year. You can't have Housebuilding coming back as much as they are without subcontractors, and we're speaking to them, our peer group is speaking to them, and we would expect some savings to be starting to come through, which maybe aren't built into everyone's models yet. Net debt of GBP 328 million was in line with expectations, and we would expect that to reduce to around GBP 100 million at the end of the year. So Partnerships delivering revenue and profit growth against more challenging market conditions, proving again, it's countercyclical, has resilience against the market, and there's a massive shortage in this country. As you know, we've been incredibly busy since the acquisition of Countryside, so the last 10 months have been pretty manic. But against that, delighted to be able to say that we have won on, again, on a pro forma basis, more NHBC, local authority, Premier Guarantee awards than ever before. I'm delighted that our staff have taken time out and have raised over GBP 200,000 thus far. It's higher than that already for Alzheimer's Society, our chosen charity for the year. Delighted with the deal we did with Sage for Home Stepper, which is our new shared equity vehicle, which is going very, very well. And importantly, from an HBF customer satisfaction survey perspective, we continue to be five star, and it's important that both our Housebuilding individually and our Partnerships businesses are five star, with our nine-month score, which we're focusing on more and more these days, at 80.2%, and our eight-week score at 91.2%. None of our KPIs have dropped, even though we've been incredibly busy. On that, I'll pass over to Tim. Thanks, Greg. Morning, everybody. Yeah, there's a lot more to cover in our half-year results presentation than normal today, so I will try and canter through the half-year results highlights. So just to reiterate what Greg has already said, there's a very strong set of numbers in the half-year, given the market uncertainty and given that we were busy integrating Countryside in the first half of the year. Headline revenue was up 30%. Now, of course, that was largely driven by the acquisition of Countryside. On a pro forma basis, we were down 12.9%, but particular notice that Partnerships pro forma growth was 7.1%. In terms of profit before tax, so we came in in line with expectations. The 174 million that we recorded in the first half year is just shy of 40% of the full year. We would expect it to be in the low 40s in a normal year, but we were somewhat impacted by the slowdown in Q4 at the end of last year feeding through to the start of this year. But catching up, and as Greg said, we've reiterated our guidance for this year of GBP 450 million, or in excess of GBP 450 million PBT for FY 2023. EPS is obviously impacted by the shares issued for the Countryside combination last year, which explains why EPS is down 40% year-on-year. Return on capital employed was 21.9% for the 12 months. Now, of course, that's a slightly distorted figure because 12-month. We have ROCE on a 12-month rolling basis, and the start of the year, it was just Vistry standalone. However, we'd expect it to be low in the first half of the year anyway because of the seasonal buildup of capital. So moving into a bit more detail, let's go to the Partnerships financials. So, great progress with the integration this year. We are now operating very clearly as a single Vistry Partnerships business under the brand of Countryside Partnerships. We're reporting against pro forma here, because the year-on-year numbers obviously are most distorted. The details of the pro forma units are in the appendix of the slides. So up over 5% on completions, up over 7% on revenue year-on-year. The operating profit margin has increased year-over-year. Again, this is partly due to the combination and an increased proportion of mixed tenure activity in Partnerships. Mixed tenure comes with higher operating profit. The six-month ROCE of 34.8%, below our target of 40%, but on the right trajectory to get back to 40% for year-end and 12 months in excess of 40%. So the usual metrics here for Partnerships. The one thing I'd bring to your attention on this slide is that the proportion of mixed tenure is now over 75% of the business. So as we've indicated before, moving much more to a mixed tenure business and away from Partner Delivery and Contracting. Housebuilding solid period, obviously more impacted by market conditions than Partnerships. Total completions down 22.4% on a pro forma basis, and margins were impacted by the multi-unit sales, which obviously came with some degree of discount. Somewhere between 5% and 15% was the normal discount range on multi-unit, but that sustained a higher level of completions. And in terms of the Housebuilding metrics, a greater shift to affordable related to that multi-unit deal profile. I think last year we were about 23% of our business was affordable, and in the first half of the year, 30% of completions were affordable in Housebuilding. So already starting a move towards a greater affordable mix in that business. Build cost is becoming less of an issue and more of an opportunity. You know, this time last year, there was a lot of discussion about inflation. We've been ahead of the pack, I think, in saying that we've got control of build costs. We've benefited from the Countryside combination, which has given us greater scale and greater length of contract offering because of the resilience of the business. So we've already said that we've been able to mitigate the material unit cost increases through our negotiations with suppliers. We're seeing subcontractor rates hold, and actually, we're seeing that as an area of opportunity in the second half of the year as we engage more with subcontractors, particularly on the back of the new strategy, which should enable greater commitment and greater long-term certainty of our offering to our subcontractors. Greg's already mentioned the Countryside synergies are ahead of target. Now, that's about pace rather than absolute quantum. We're sticking with the GBP 60 million per annum run rate at the end of next year, with the extra GBP 25 million to come from the combination of House building and Partnerships. But rather than the 25 that we were previously indicating for this year, we're now saying at least GBP 35 million for this year, and that's because we've done deals with our procurements, with our suppliers faster than expected, and we've been able to realize the overhead savings faster than initially targeted. In terms of the total costs of delivering that, it's been broadly in line with what we originally anticipated. So it's not come at any extra cost, delivering those extra savings this year. In terms of land activity, we have continued to buy with highly selective in the first half of the year. You can see from the map there that it's a well geographically dispersed land activity in the first half of the year. Land bank has dropped slightly, and we are seeing evidence of a softening in some areas of the market. We've been able to negotiate a few deals at better-than-expected terms and conditions on the basis that it's a slightly less competitive environment that we're in. Earl will come back with a little bit more on the land bank and what this means, what the strategy means for our land bank later in the presentation. In terms of the cash flows, so how do we get to the half-year net debt position of GBP 329 million? We opened the year with GBP 118 million of net cash. We obviously delivered GBP 174 million of profit. Then, there was an outflow from work in progress of about GBP 200 million, and that GBP 200 million, it's largely seasonal trends, and the seasonal trend is more pronounced with the Countryside business, so the multi-tenure and the Countryside profile is slightly more seasonally weighted than the previous Vistry Partnerships business. And there's also a bit of a buildup of WIP because it's more second half-weighted this year than normal. Again, going back to Q4 last year, which slowed down WIP at the end of last year, and there's been a bit of catch-up this year. So we'd expect some of this WIP to unwind in the second half of the year. In terms of land, the absolute land cash spend in the half year was about GBP 280 million, which is similar to last year, but less land has gone through cost of sales, which is why it looks like a net investment in land in the first half of the year, and that's because it's been a slower, or a lower, profitability in the first half of the year as things become more second half-weighted. So that's land. Fire safety, I'll just point out that it's only GBP 11 million in the first half of the year, which is a lower number than we might originally have expected, and that's 'cause more of the fire safety activity in the first half of the year has been about planning and preparation. We'll get out much more onto sites in the second half of the year, and I expect that about GBP 30 million will be spent on land, on fire safety in the second half of the year. Integration costs from the Countryside acquisition are largely done. There'll be a bit of cash in the second half of the year, but largely spent. The GBP 33 million includes GBP 23 million related to restructuring activity, and it includes GBP 10 million of transaction costs that were actually paid this year rather than last year. The tax payments in the first half of the year were lower, as well. That's just due to the timing of the payment profile. We'd expect that to be significantly higher in the second year, the second half of the year, maybe GBP 50 million-ish higher in the second half of the year. So what does that mean for year end? As Greg said before, we're signaling net debt to be somewhere around GBP 100 million at the end of the year. Our average net debt in the first half of the year was GBP 360 million. We'd expect it to be around that sort of level, closer to GBP 400 million, perhaps, in the second half of the year. So, fire safety again. The underlying assumptions of fire safety are not significantly changed. We've got a few more sites that we're looking at, but they're offset by lower costs than some of the original 305 sites that we had. So 317 sites that we have a plan for delivering remediation work on. What has changed in the half year is that there's been a move on the second staircase regulation, which is related to providing greater fire safety protection, and that has. The regulation has moved from it being a 30-meter expectation, or buildings taller than 30 meters requiring second staircase, the expectation's moved for that to now be 18 meters. Now, the impact of that is that it's made some of our London schemes less viable. There's one scheme we've had to cease, and has led to a write-off of about GBP 6 million through exceptional charge, and there's two that we are committed to, but which are now expected to be loss-making, so we've made a loss provision of GBP 12 million for that. So that explains the increase of the GBP 12.3 in the provision for the at the half year. Right, this isn't a slide for everybody. Operating profit to profit after tax, but has got some important elements in there. First of all, to note the finance costs, and all elements of finance costs have increased during the year. So first of all, bank interest has gone up because the higher average net, net debt, but of course, the higher interest rate environment has impacted bank interest costs. Second, following the Countryside acquisition, we have a greater quantity of leases and land creditors, so the discounting of that flows through net finance costs, and finally, JV interest, where again, the interest rate environment and the greater number of JVs coming in from Countryside has increased the JV interest. So significant increase year-on-year in finance costs. I've covered the exceptionals, I think already. I think the final point to make on this page is just around the tax expense, where clearly we are bearing, like others, a greater burden of tax with the increase in corporation tax from 19%- 25%, and we're continuing to pay our PDT of around 4%. So we're assuming an underlying effective tax rate for this year of 27.2%, which will move towards 29% next year. On the balance sheets, bring particular attention to capital employed here. So capital employed is deviating somewhat from TNAV, which is often thought of as the same thing as capital employed. And the reason for that is because the fire safety provision is included in TNAV, and we feel it's inappropriate to include that in capital employed. The costs of fire safety have gone through exceptional, and by including in capital employed, it would effectively boost our ROCE. So it would be great for, you know, window dressing perhaps, but it would be inappropriate to treat that, treat that provision within capital employed. The other piece to point out is goodwill. So goodwill has increased as part of the finalization process from our acquisition accounting from Countryside. It's increased by GBP 23 million, largely due to one particular site that, with the transfer to new management, no longer looks viable, so there's been a writedown of inventory on that site. Now, in theory, we have another two months to finalize our Countryside acquisition accounting. You've got 12 months after the date of acquisition, but what we're gonna do is, hopefully draw a line where we are now and not reopen that for the next couple of months. So, so our hope is that that's done. Of course, if something exceptional comes out that, backdates to November last year, then we'll look at it, but it's unlikely. So hopefully acquisition accounting is now done. And with that, I'll pass back to Greg. Thanks, Tim. All very exciting. So, moving on to market, market trends. So we continue to see strong demand for mixed tenure housing from local authorities, RPs, and PRS providers. And of course, the breadth of the companies that we work with in this country is second to none. Open market private sales have slowed further since June, with higher mortgage rates, but I would say the last four to eight weeks have been pretty stable, so nothing going back any further, I don't think. There's been strong demand for our first-time buyer product, predominantly Home Stepper, and it's good that that's supported by GBP 150 million worth of direct grant we're now getting from Homes England, which is the maximum amount that they can give to a private sector partner. On pricing, open market pricing remains firm, but we've seen the increased use of incentives 3%-5%. In Housebuilding transactions with RPs and local authorities since the start of the year have averaged between 5%-15% down against asking prices, not forecast prices. And as I said earlier, we see a significant opportunity to achieve a reduction in output costs in the second half of this year. It can only be me. That's not. Sorry about this. Whatever you do, don't do anything make it too quick. I don't want to look an idiot. Yeah. Sorry. Thank you. Sorry about that. So our full year outlook. So Partnerships has a strong order book totaling GBP 3 billion, with 90% of forecasts for mixed tenure units and all Partner Delivery revenues for this year already secured. Housebuilding forward order book, GBP 1.3 billion, and that's 80%, 87%, sorry, 87% of this year's forecast already in place, about the same as we were last year. Housebuilding and Partnerships continue to secure transactions with RPs and local authorities to deliver on the full year 2023 forecast, which will help mitigate the slowdown in open market sales. Impact of market slowdown and full year 2023 forecast is offset, in part, as Tim said, through the acceleration of synergies. Now we're expecting at least GBP 35 million. We said at the last update, we were expecting 25, but it's interesting to note at the start of the year, that was GBP 19 million. The group remains very, very selective in the land market, and all the land we've acquired over the last few months fits in with the new strategy, i.e., 65% pre-sold. The board reiterates its guidance of GBP 450 million, at least adjusted profit for the year, for this year, and that's 15% higher than consensus at the first of January. That's an interesting point before we start into why are we going into the new strategy. That is, we've looked at all the numbers from the peer group, and on average, the peer group are all about seven, sorry, 12% down on consensus. So there is a 27% delta between us and the majority of the peer group, and that's predominantly because of the strength of our Partnerships business. So the strategy evolution. Why now, you may ask? So we've obviously bought Countryside. We've got much more exposure to the affordable market, so we do have confidence in the market opportunity. The need for mixed tenure housing developments strengthening is further, is going on further, massive. The recognition of urgent need for housing solution from all stakeholders is massive, including all political parties, and most importantly, the Labour Party. So we also have spoken to all of Homes England and all of our major RP, PRS provider partners, and they are. To say they are pleased with the new strategy would be an understatement. They are absolutely ecstatic with the way we are going down the road and think it's absolutely right for major house builders. So we've got the confidence in the ability to execute. So we're well through the integration of Countryside, and progress, as Tim said, is ahead of schedule. We've got a really deep understanding of the markets and strong relationships with our partners, which have taken years and years and years to develop. Let's not forget that. Having been around in House building for 40-odd years, I can tell you this, that, you know, affordable housing, housing association people like to deal with people who talk to them when it's a rainy day, like it is today, as well as on a sunny day, like it might be again next year. So they want to deal with people who will be around for them in all markets. High return on capital, commercial, delivery model has been proven since the acquisition of Countryside, and I can't say, reiterate enough, we have got a really strong management team, both in Partnerships and the parts of House building that are coming into the new organization. So I think it also gives you guys clear direction over our future strategy. It removes the uncertainty over the future of the House building division, and it gives us a clear differentiation against house builders, and it is completely in line with the group's new capital allocation policy, which Tim will talk about in more detail later. So on that, Stephen. Thanks, Greg. Good morning, everyone. As Greg has highlighted, our strategy responds directly to the enduring supply side deficit. What I'm gonna do is run through that market opportunity, but in particular, I can't resist highlighting how our model differentiates itself. So three important differentiators for how our model aligns with that market opportunity. But first, whether you see it as a market opportunity, a crisis, or, as Greg said, a disaster, we can't deny that the U.K. housing market is failing far too many people. So let's just see where that's particularly an issue in terms of. If I get to the right page. On we go here. Right, thank you. We'll go forward rather than back, sorry, Greg. Acute need for affordable housing, which is absolutely where the demand is. So let's, I know, get used to some figures. We're used to being bombarded with figures, we might become immune to housing needs figures, for those of us who look at them regularly, but let's just be data rational for a moment. Over 1 million households, that's households, not people, over 1 million households on local authority waiting lists. One in 10 people in the U.K. housed inadequately, living in poor quality accommodation. And the increase in temporary accommodation, households requiring temporary accommodation, those households, the majority of them include children, is weighing heavily on local authority budgets and resources, meaning that local authorities need to do something about it. And there's the statistic that highlights that, homelessness at its highest level for 25 years. Greg talked about responsibility. There's a key responsibility for our sector to respond to that. But it's not just about statutory homelessness, it's about pressures across the whole system. So that historic undersupply is really hitting affordable housing. The long-term trend for affordable housing delivery is around about 54,000-55,000 homes a year. But we're seeing delivery, when you take account of right to buys, and you take account of staircasing, that's where people with shared ownership staircase out of affordable and demolitions, the underlying level is about 30,000. And with a shortfall of 100,000 of housing a year, that's pumping additional pressure into the system. If you take account of the inadequate stock and the fact that our older persons housing as a country is inadequate, what you end up with is a real decline in affordable lettings. What a statistic! 17% fewer lettings for affordable housing now than a decade ago. It's into that market that we face. Those lengthening queues are what we're setting our strategy to address. Okay, and we'll go forward again. I'll get this right in a moment. Right, market evolution. The market... Sorry, back. There we are. We've got a technical hitch. It's called a delay, which is all caused by me. So here are the three queues that we are facing into. So this is key. Look at those three queues, they're getting longer. The first queue at the top for social affordable rent, over 1 million people in that queue. That movement in that queue is determined by the amount of subsidy available and the level of build in the country. About 40% of the supply in that queue comes from Section 106. Section 106 and less being built, that's gonna go backwards. The bottom queue, for home ownership and private rented sector, are affected by mortgage availability, mortgage affordability, and that's leading to increased demand within the private rented sector for people denied options, looking for rent. And then that middle queue, this queue is getting deeper and longer. It is the deepest queue. It's the queue that politicians are focused on, because here are our future voters. This is people, particularly the under 45s, all looking for forms of intermediate housing. They don't qualify for affordable rent and social rent. They can't have access affordably for home ownership. They're looking for solutions, and that requires discounts, guarantees, and subsidy in order for that queue to also be moving. The differentiator here, the first differentiator for our model, is that our Partnerships business addresses all three queues. Not just looking for home ownership and treating affordable housing as an abnormal, but absolutely focused responsibly on delivering into those three queues. And the market is evolving to that demand. So it's they've evolved since Help to Buy has been withdrawn, and we're seeing increasing demand for shared ownership. And as Greg said, our Home Stepper product, working with Sage, but also talking to our registered provider partners, all seeing an uptick in the demand for shared ownership as prospective Help to Buy purchasers have migrated towards shared ownership. Increasing demand for PRS, as I've already mentioned, and a big uptick in new money flowing into new, for-profit providers. These are new forms of housing association. There are 80 of them around at the moment, and they, along with local authorities, for the reasons that I mentioned earlier, are looking to respond to that demand. Homes England, rightly recognizing that what's needed is long-term investment and ability to see strategically forward for forward programs. So as Greg said, we benefit from one of those forward programs looking to invest between 2021 and 2026. There are headwinds for the traditional Registered Providers. Undoubtedly, decarbonization investment, building safety, dealing with the additional challenges that they've got in the operating environment at the moment, has led some to cut back some of their development plans. But there's a deep commitment and deep capacity within that sector, and we can continue to see the volumes and the investment programs coming forward over the next decade. They're also working with some of those for-profit providers to ease the pressure on their balance sheets. So that longer term, visibility of opportunity is key, and that's what's helping drive our strategy. And it's a political momentum behind it. As you saw last week, unsurprisingly, all of the politicians are recognizing the opportunity and the demand. But you need to respond to that in a responsible way and show your commitment across the supply chain for delivery. This, second differentiator in our business is, and here's a definition of a Partnerships business, "a business that only develops sites with partners." We work with the private and public sector partners in delivering, and there are three key categories that we work with. The majority of our work has been with Registered Providers, 2.74 million homes across the country. They're managing just over 200 RPs, so a big constituent, and they're funded through bank debt, bond issuance and grant, all assisting them in looking to bring forward schemes. Although there are challenges to that sector, and particularly in interest rate cover at the moment, the regulator responding on a quarterly basis, continues to see them as extremely well hedged businesses with long-term, robust plans. It is a very financially sound form of public and private sector investment, and that's reflected in those new supply figures, GBP 13 billion invested over delivery for the next year. Should we be surprised at a time of rental growth that the private rented sector is looking for opportunities, particularly portfolio opportunities, in order to deliver both Single Family and multifamily? That's the flatted developments in urban areas, the multifamily. Single Family dwellings focused on dispersed housing stock, exactly reflecting the sort of land bank that we've got, the land holdings that we have, and we can draw down and meet some of that supply. But a key new constituent for us is the local authorities. We already work with local authorities, from Gateshead to Cornwall, and I think in the last six months, we've announced working with local authorities in Enfield, with Camden, with Bristol, with Warwickshire. You will have seen that that is a market that we're particularly keen on working more with, and they can see the benefits of that approach. And the majority of local authorities, through housing companies and through JVs, looking to deliver. So that platform and experience of work is what's helping us meet the demand. But that's amplified by our relationship with government agencies. Homes England is a key partner for us, and our strategy is completely aligned with theirs. Homes England want to see mixed tenure, affordable mixed tenure delivery. They want to see delivery at pace and fast absorption, and a commitment to placemaking and quality development. A nd we tick all of those boxes. That's what our strategy is focused on, working with our partners and supporting the wider industry through engagement with SME, through working with supply chain partners, through using the resources Vistry Works, our factory, in order to support that. That's key, and as Greg has said, we work across their funding programs, and there's the, affordable housing program being most obvious, but also there are debt and equity opportunities to work with Homes England on delivery as well. Following the combination, our relationship with that other public sector body that's commissioning housing, GLA, has been really strengthened, really mature, relationships, mature platform of delivery within London through Countryside Partnerships, and that's really amplified that opportunity as well, which is great. With responsibility for land, about Homes England, about 40% of the land that has come into Partnerships over the last two years has been sourced from the public sector, and we're currently building 12,500 homes on 35 sites. If that was on a single site, by the way, we'd be building Welwyn Garden City. That would be the headline, or a city the size of Chichester. Our strength and our unique capabilities come from our people, our relationships, and as Greg said, our track record. So we've engineered our model to align with partner investment strategies, and importantly, we've got an operational platform that is very difficult to replicate. Many touch points within each business platform with our partners, and that's absolutely key. That allows us to be successful. We understand the language, and that track record of performance is key. So partners want to see a covenant, they want to see culture, and they want to see a capability that allows us to deliver, and that's important. And on the right-hand side there, all of those have been strengthened, I'm pleased to say. Our culture, our great people that have joined us from Countryside Partnerships, and our placemaking and regeneration skills, all strengthening our offer to those partners in terms of delivering that responsible developer platform. Now, I don't know whether you think of defensible features as being moats or barriers, but they are certainly deeper and taller now than they were as a result of the combination, which is important. And as Greg has said, our partners see end-of-cycle behaviors. When somebody's knocking on the door on a transactional, short-term transactional basis, they understand the difference. So we can be enormously confident as we face into that strategy because we know it works, and we have the relationships, and when you start looking at the scale, you can see why that's the case. So there's four boxes there. Please don't add them up and make 40 billion, because there's some overlap with each of those boxes. But first, on the left there, GBP 6 billion in registered provider contracts. So we are currently. The ink is dry. We are building 30,000 homes. It includes a 12-month defects period, so some of them might be handed over now, but 30,000 affordable homes being delivered in contract. Go to the right of the slide, and our track record of work in joint ventures, and this doesn't include our very good joint ventures with some private sector partners like Wates and TW. This is just our registered provider joint ventures, and you can see the partners there, 33, a total value of GBP 18 billion. An enormous track record. Fantastic. And that's supported by our work with 93 housing associations or Registered Providers. And look, that, that color chart there is indicative of the true percentage of work that we have with each of them. We're not working more than 7% with any specific of our total involvement with any single RP. Great capacity for us to do more with those RPs. And then my favorite number on that slide is that GBP 22 billion. That's what we call our work on the bench. So somebody in our business is working on every pound of that GBP 22 billion. That includes our forward order books across the whole group. It includes our pre-solds across the whole group, our forward sales. It includes where we're preferred bidder, where we've had an award, we're working on it, and we hope to announce it shortly, and it includes our mixed tenure affordable land bank, which we want to bring forward. GBP 22 billion. That's our third differentiator, that we have scale to succeed. So I'm gonna hand over to Earl now to tell you about the fourth differentiator, which is our capital light returns-based model. Thanks, Stephen. Good morning. So I'm actually gonna take you through the four key priorities we see for implementing this evolving strategy, but before I do, as Stephen said, I will just remind you of our Partnerships and model. Excuse me. So a high level of secured revenue, a capital light business, risk-based approach to each development, but the absolute priority, as Greg said, a 40% return on capital across the business. So that's secured revenue, always looking for at least 50% pre-sale. Happy for that to flex as far as 100%, either up front or through the development, if that is the right thing to do. Capital light, put simply, we like to build with somebody else's money. Typically, that is our partners' monies. We sell land, develop houses, and get stage payments, but also very open to other sources of capital, typically, loans in from Homes England, local authorities, RPs, as well as our banks. A balance of risks and opportunities on each development does determine our approach, but as I say, always targeting 40% return on capital. You've heard both Greg and Stephen talk a lot about a responsible developer. We are already a responsible developer, and as such, we are supporting the sector to modernize. It is embedded in exactly what we do, so addressing the country's social need in terms of affordable mixed tenure housing and all those additional costs in terms of housing waiting lists, the cost locally of housing people, the knock-on in terms of health and welfare, is exactly what we are doing. We are focused on a high level of delivery, a focus on regeneration and brownfield development, as well as our aspiration to grow significantly the sustainable timber frame manufacturing in our business. It's inherent within how we work with our partners in terms of that extensive list of joint ventures Stephen mentioned, but in the way we help them with our stewardship and governance working together. Responsible developer also runs all the way through how we work with our supply chain. In terms of delivery to our clients and customers, a clear commitment to go at a pace to accelerate, deliver right the way across every aspect of the sector and looking to the future, future-proofing our product and looking at new technologies to deliver. Okay, strategy implementation, so four areas. Firstly, the migration of our House building land bank into a partnerships model, looking to combine the very good strengths of both our House building and Partnerships businesses into one, simplifying our organizational structure and the way we work to be just one consistent way of working, and then driving that production efficiency, increasing the level of production. Our land bank. So you can see here on the left of the screen is our land bank at the end of June, so our Partnerships land bank, over 46,000 plots, House building, just over 30,000 plots, and our valuable strategic land, over 66,000 plots. And then, as you go to the right-hand side, is our current view of how we're going to migrate that House building land bank into the Partnerships model. Firstly, 27% or around 8,000 homes are already designated affordable by a planning agreement, so that will be social rent, affordable rent, shared ownership being delivered. In addition, a further 1,000 already pre-sold within that land bank, and looking further forward, we expect to pre-sell something in the region of 8,500 plots over the next two to three years. We've identified around 20 parcels of land that could go to an SME or be a land swap with competitors. That actually could be between about 1,200-2,000 plots. And then, of course, we do intend to sell around 35%-40% of that House building land bank as private sales, and particularly tapping into those shared ownership products, so Home Stepper has been mentioned, and that could be as many as 12,000 homes out of the land bank. There will be a few schemes that we will deliver using the Partnerships model, but they are slightly higher capital, so in the short term, there'll be a little drag on the return on capital from them. But across those, the numbers on the screen are actually where I would say, the middle of the range for each of those opportunities. You've already heard from Stephen the size of the market for each of those opportunities, so that should give you some reassurance in terms of the deliverability of that migration. And in addition, the Housebuilding business has already exchanged on 23 multi-unit transactions this year, so that's 1,172 plots, and we have at least another 500 with terms agreed already. And I've come back to that strategic land bank. It really will support the Partnerships model, particularly in terms of some of the key large schemes that are coming through. And yes, I suspect it will also deliver further land sales and swaps into the future. So here are the various parties that we will be working with, transacting with, in terms of that House building land bank. I'm not gonna go through them all because you've heard quite a lot already, but I would say that we are in discussions with a number of parties for what I would say are more strategic, long-term transactions of some scale, and we will update you on those as we progress. I'll draw your attention to the fact that we have our own RP, Linden First, and that really could become a delivery destination for a significant amount of our product in the medium term. We're already out talking to potential providers of capital to support Linden First. A link to that, already mentioned, you know, we are the only PLC house builder with a grant program directly with Homes England. That's already delivering on a number of sites, but could also support capitalizing and using Linden First ourselves. Okay, the leadership team, always good to see some pictures on the screen. So the exec team going forwards, reduced to seven people from nine as we simplify our business. Stephen is taking a business development, business growth role, so absolutely focused on all our clients and customers. Michael Stirrup, who is here this morning, already responsible for manufacturing, strategic land, and a couple of other areas, will take a wider end-to-end supply chain role, so picking up design, technical and commercial. Mike Woolliscroft remains responsible for London. Sorry, Mike is here this morning as well. But he will also be instrumental supporting me in the change required to make our business operate absolutely consistently across the whole. And there really is strength in depth in that team. So 134 years of experience within the ELT, and a further 127 years of experience within the six divisional chairs that will run the business day to day. So simplifying the organization, we currently have two overlapping geographies, and we're looking to simplify that to one, as you can see on the screen. I think it's worth noting that, the two divisional chairs that will lead the North and Midlands have been operating across that patch since the beginning of the year. So the split of geography you see on the screen is as much to retain some key internal and external relationships. I know that James and Adam will continue to work very closely together. We expect to operate across 27 business units going forward, but that will give us plenty of capacity to grow. We think 27 businesses can deliver 24,000 homes in due course, and that's plenty of growth from where we are today. We are absolutely looking to combine the best of Vistry Houseb uilding and Countryside Partnerships and have one way of working, whether that's constructing on site, our passion for pride in the job, whether it's selling and marketing our product, standard design, specification, use of timber frame, or even how we contract with partners, looking for consistency across them all. The simplification will make us an even more agile business, and agility is something we already pride ourselves on. And finally, as a natural consequence of the changes we're making, we do expect annual savings of GBP 25 million, the majority of which will come through in 2024. So we've already said, high level of delivery, accelerated production, high asset turn, absolutely key to the strategy. And therefore, going forward, we do expect a good level of output, no matter what the short-term trends in the housing market are. That high level of presale ensures that we're able to commit to new sites and to continue to commit to work in progress, investment on each of our sites. Really important with all our supply chain in terms of being able to give them that surety of delivery, surety of supply, and that is to their benefit. And in response, we do expect the highest level of service and the best value for money. So we are communicating with them all this week in terms of the update to the strategy, and we will continue those discussions in the coming days and weeks, to our mutual benefit. And then our ambitions with Vistry Works, totally aligned with the strategy in terms of looking to improve the speed of build and also drive a more sustainable approach to production. So our capacity is now over 7,000 homes across the three factories. We're looking to double the production next year to around 5,000 homes from those factories. We've already added in some other timber product manufacturing to those factories, so roof trusses and joists. It's gonna be a key part of our roadmap to Future Homes Standard 2025. And looking further to the future, we are running a number of trials, whether that's around brick slips or incorporating solar and PV panels with our timber frame, and some other simple ones in terms of looking at things like stairs. So overall, mandating the use of Vistry Works, our timber frame across the business and expanding the geography is also key to our strategy. And with that, I'll hand you back to Tim to talk about capital allocation. I'll try. Thanks, Earl. So capital allocation. We left you hanging at the full year results in May and said we were gonna go through a period of consultation with shareholders during the course of the summer, and we've conducted that. We're very grateful for all of the feedback we've got from so many shareholders and lots of advice on how we might proceed. And actually, those consultations have been very helpful in forming and concluding on our strategy over the summer as well. So first of all, there was broad agreement over some of the key tenets. So first of all, a very broad agreement that the Partnerships model should be very cash generative. There was a view that we need to prioritize the strengthening of the balance sheet and maintaining a strong balance sheet position. There was also a view that we needed to make sure we retained a good degree of flexibility for our future investment needs so that we could be opportunistic. There was probably greater disparity of views about the form of distribution of the shareholder returns. So what have we concluded? If I work down this from top to bottom. So first of all, in terms of cash generation, as I said, I'd expect a significant improvement in our overall cash generation as a result of moving to the Partnerships model. There will be some lumpiness in that, so as we conclude some of the big deals and we do some pre-selling, there will be some greater lumpiness in terms of the cash inflow. Of course, we are committed to a couple of areas of cash spend, in particular, fire safety, which is factored into our models. We'd expect that fire safety will diminish over time. We're probably expecting it to be in the region of GBP 60 million over the next three years or so, but then it will diminish, and similarly, some of the tax burden may we would hope, might drop over time. Then, into maintaining the strong balance sheet, we believe we can return to a year-end net cash position at the end of FY 2024, and we will eliminate our average net debt position over the medium term, but we're happy to carry some debt intraperiod, between now and then. We'll be looking to retain our bank facility, and we'll get into discussions with our banks on the back of this strategy announcement about retaining our existing facilities to ensure that we've got plenty of headroom and flexibility as we execute it over the next 12-18 months. We'll, of course, keep sufficient reserve to make those investment decisions as we go through, and we'll continue to use deferred payments for land, so we would expect land creditors to continue to tick up over time. So then getting to how we're gonna return cash to shareholders. Well, the first thing is that we have concluded that we're able to maintain a 2 times cover ratio in terms of distributions. In other words, 50% of our net adjusted earnings will be returned to shareholders on a six-monthly basis. The form of that distribution will be determined based on the prevailing conditions at the time. So we'll be looking at, among other things, share price at the time and the board's view of valuation to determine whether we go down the dividends route or the buyback route. We're not writing out either. We're, we're not writing off either route, and we may have some blend of it. However, as we'll come to in a second, we have concluded that at the moment, share buybacks makes sense given the undervaluation of the business. Then, because of these lumpy returns, we would expect to generate excess capital over and above that two times cover return. The timing and the quantum of those is not predictable, so the way that we would expect to distribute those is in the form of a special dividend or a special buyback at the time. As with ordinary distributions, we'd expect that that split would be determined based on the prevailing conditions at the time. So the summary of all of that then is that we would expect to distribute GBP 1 billion to shareholders over the next three or so years, and when we say over the next three years, we're really talking about including the cash generation of FY 2026. And also, we'll be eliminating the net debt in that period as well. So this slide just puts that capital allocation policy in a narrative form. I won't go through that again, and to confirm, our H2 2023 proposal is that we will distribute on the basis of the expected earnings for the year. We'll be commencing a buyback of shares in November, which is when we would have paid the dividend. So we'll commence that in November, and we'll be targeting GBP 55 million of share buybacks before the end of the or before the full year results next year. So just for, if it's not clear already, just a bit more clarity on how we get to that GBP 1 billion. Well, slightly more than a half we would expect to come from the adjusted net earnings of the, of the group. As we work towards our medium-term targets of 800 AOP, when I say medium term, I'm really talking about a three to five-year horizon. As we work towards that, we would expect that the earnings of the business will yield, sufficient ordinary distributions that more than half of the GBP 1 billion will be distributed in that form. And then the, the, the rest will come from the release of capital. So from some of the things that Earl talked about earlier on, some of the deals we will do over the next two to three years, we should be generating excess capital. As we see our capital employed on the balance sheet come down, that will fund the extra bit of the GBP 1 billion. Then, of course, we have the undistributed earnings, so the other 50% of adjusted net earnings, which will help fund the repayment of debt, the fire safety provision, and any other investment needs. So we covered some of the areas of outlook already. For FY 2023, again, we have in excess of GBP 450 million profit expected to be delivered this year. There are more moving parts than normal at this time of the year, including a high quantity of land bank deals and multi-unit deals still to close for the rest of the year, but we remain confident of in excess of 450. I will just call out that there will be an accounting adjustment likely to be required as a result of the transition to the Partnerships model. So what we'll have to do for each site is reevaluate the mix of private, affordable, and presale, which might lead to a margin adjustment for some sites. The accounting policy with Vistry Group is to go back and reflect that revised margin back from the start of the calendar year, in which that reassessment has been done. So there could be a look back to the start of 2023 for those schemes that are reevaluated with margin downwards this year. We can't put a number to that yet for FY 2023, because, A, we don't know the, the quantum, B, we don't know the timing, 'cause it may not be an FY 2023 piece, and third of all, we don't know yet the presentation of that. One way or another, we will call that number out, and we will inform the market at the right time, but whether that is treated as exceptional or within our regular adjusted profit is to be determined. So that's, that's FY 2023. It's still early days for FY 2024, clearly, with the market and with the execution of the strategy to come. However, we recognize we need to give some degree of guidance for FY 2024. So what we'd expect is that we would see volumes rising next year, largely due to this move from Housebuilding to Partnerships and the acceleration of completions as a result. We would expect some margin decline, and we'd probably expect that those two things would offset each other. As we've said before, we would expect some overhead savings into next year, and we'd also expect our average net debt balance to decrease next year, which will give us some finance cost savings into next year. A nd then the medium term targets, I think we've covered. I mean, I think the main piece, though, that has changed within here is the ROCE balance. So we've talked before about 400 operating profits coming from Housebuilding and 400 from Partnerships, and it's no coincidence that we're now talking about 800 from the combined group. Previously, we said 25% return on capital and Housebuilding, now we're saying 40% for the entire group. So that implies a reduction in capital employed, and it's that that underpins and helps to fuel this additional distribution that we've talked about. And I think that covers the capital allocation. Thanks, Tim. So to finish things off then, one last slide. So Vistry Group, the leading Partnerships business. So it's a natural evolution of our strategy. It reflects the structural adjustment, as we would see it in the market, and responds to the significant and unmet demand. Although transformational, we have the best people, the knowledge, and the relationships within our business. I think you can take that as read. It draws on the visibility we now have on our assets, following the combination which Earl and Tim have gone through. We will have a disciplined approach to implementation, capturing those further synergy savings of at least GBP 25 million. The number one priority of the group going forward is the 40% return on capital. That is number one priority. We are on it every single day. Potential for EPS growth. If you were to look in your appendix and go to page 62, we just did a little exercise to see how this would look in the medium term. So if we were, for instance, to buy GBP 1 billion worth of shares at an average price of GBP 10, and achieve the GBP 800 million adjusted operating profit, that would take our EPS to GBP 2.24, against the consensus for this year of 93p, which is a 140% increase. Just put that down as a marker. So our strategy is supported by a clear capital allocation strategy, with the group targeting, as Tim's just said, very eloquently, GBP 1 billion of shareholder distributions over the next three years. So what we're all about going forward is a high return, capital light, resilient model from a responsible developer. On that, sorry it's taken so long, but there was a lot to go through there. We'll take any questions. If you put your hands up, a microphone will miraculously appear. Thanks very much. Jonny Coubrough from Numis. Thanks for the detailed presentation. Could I ask, firstly, a question on what you're seeing from competition? I mean, you said in the presentation, Stephen, that you're seeing end of cycle behaviors from competitors. Does that mean there's a big reduction in capital going into the sector? And also, are you seeing better opportunities to win longer term schemes? Now, what, I'll take that to start with, Stephen. What, what that means is we're seeing, all house builders, speaking to a number of the housing associations, RPs, PRS providers that we are, which in turn is maybe giving them a better hand and driving down, or driving up the, the level of discount that they're looking to do, on bulk deals, as we call it. End of cycle. So typical, what a house builder, what I would do in this kind of market. That's what that means. Anything else to add to that, Stephen? No, that's exactly right. My main point was, that's a purely short-term transactional arrangement, not a long-term commitment to delivery, which is what the funding programs require and what our partners want to see, which is long-term commitment to supply. And just on that, we're talking to RPs and PRS providers about a number of major deals as we speak, which will take us long past this year. Thanks very much. Just as a follow-up, what are you seeing on longer term partnership schemes with local authorities? Are you seeing a change in competition in that space? Stephen? No, that's, that's continuing. The usual players are still active, working with local authorities. Local authorities are very much replicating the best examples that different local authorities have undertaken. The longer term estate regeneration schemes, which are becoming an increasing focus, are being worked through. They take longer, the gestation period is longer, but local authorities are absolutely recognizing, as I said, the burden of dealing with temporary homelessness and dealing with homeless households, means they need to stretch their assets and their Partnerships in order to encourage supply. So I think that's a growing area, not, not. We're seeing more interest in talking to us, not less. Just pass it, maybe down then. Sorry. Thanks very much. Charlie Campbell at Liberum. I've got two, really. First one is big, big picture question, second one might be detailed. I just wonder how opportunistic you think the change of strategy is? In other words, meaning that, you know, if, if the private market was stronger now, would you be as bold in the speed at which you are progressing into Partnerships? Just want to understand that. And then, second question is just, I suppose, to help us with the financial modeling. Just trying to understand really, what, what the differential would be in a normal year between year-end net cash or debt and the, the average level through the year. Just, to help us reconcile those two to sort of, I suppose, to sort of see the glide path into the medium term. Thank you. Tim will take your latter one. The first one, it's got nothing to do with market conditions. It, it's strategy I've been thinking about for the last three months, and it's evolved on how well the acquisition of Countryside has gone since the date with the actual integration, the strength of the market, conversations with all of our partners. We had Homes England at a board meeting, PLC board meeting three months ago. This is exactly what they want, and with a larger Partnerships business, you could say, it's been easy to see the light with the number of opportunities and the demand that is out there. So I would hand on heart say it's got nothing to do with the housing market. And on that, as a PLC, the housing market is the housing market. It's the same for every developer, and our housing business has done, I wouldn't say the best, but it's done pretty well against the peer group. We're certainly not coming into this from, "Well, we haven't got a very good housing business. We need to come up with a new strategy." We've got an excellent housing business with some excellent people who I think will move into the new strategy incredibly well. Thank you. Tim, did you want to take the- Yeah. Do you want to challenge on that? So we're still, we're still learning the gap between average net debt and year-end net debt because we're a new business, you know, having come together last year. But take this year's numbers, it looks like the gap between average and year-end is something in the range of GBP 300-GBP 350, that sort of range. Now, with the Partnerships model, we would expect that to squeeze slightly. It should be less dependent on those year-end completions, and also just for good cash management, we'd like to find a flatter profile during the year. So you're probably modeling why you should be nearer GBP 200-GBP 250. Thank you. Will Jones from Redburn Atlantic. Three, if I can, please. First, if you could just talk more widely around the macro or business-level inputs that you've made when striking the medium-term assumptions, be it sales rate, pricing, outlets, just as a general feel for what underpins those, those numbers, please. Earl, do you want to take that one? Yeah, can do. So I mean, where we are at the minute, as we've given all the figures, I think, or most of them in terms of sales rates, so the market is depressed, as you know. We have been very good at supplementing, particularly in our House building business, in terms of the bulk sales rates. So, I'm gonna give you more detail, but the first six months, you know, was pretty good overall. It's been a bit slow for the last three, and we continue to monitor, but the level of interest in those bulk sales continues to be strong in what we see going forward. So I talked about, you know, another 500, at least, already with terms agreed, and Greg's mentioned, I mentioned, you know, some significant deals being looked at in terms of those. In terms of pricing, you know, we have largely maintained our pricing, through the period, not least, you know, supplementing with those bulk deals. But, you know, our view is that we're not gonna see a significant uptick in transactions. Shared ownership has been a really important one, so the deal that we announced back in June in terms of Home Stepper, so shared ownership, and we've got some other options we're looking at to boost that in terms of the market going forward. But the bigger picture is probably the market Stephen talked about and the assumptions going forwards. Thank you. Second one, just bringing it back to, I guess, group volumes. You mentioned the capacity, I think, of 17,000-24,000 medium term. Could you help us with where you think that'll be as a base this year? And then when we try and input that against the GBP 800 million of EBIT as a target, which I think is the same number as you introduced this time last year, I think you'll be a lower margin business overall. Yeah. B ecause of the partnership shift. So do you need to be bigger on volume to. We do need to be, yeah. At the time of the acquisition of Countryside, we wouldn't have been getting to 24, we would have been probably closer to 20. So yeah, margin will come back. We have to make that up by volume. We've got a huge strategic land bank. We've got a huge number of very, very large sites, and it's very simple. You know, gone are the days now where, you know, we've got a couple of sites which are 4,000 units. We would have been on those for 15, 20 years, 'cause your build rate will match how quickly you can sell houses on that particular site. Now, we're gonna be asking a different question: How quickly can we build 4,000 units, having pre-sold 65% of them? That's an entirely different question, and we'll get through that very, very quickly in maybe 4-5 years. We will be burning through the land bank at a very, very quick period. And interestingly, your question could then be: Are you confident about buying land with the new, in competition with house builders in the new, when the market gets better? And we are. We were buying land in Partnerships all the way through 2022 in a strong market, and as I think I maybe touched on in my presentation, all the land we've bought in the last three or four months, we've had half an eye on how will that look with the new strategy, and it all works and makes the criteria that we've set. Some of those pieces of land were in the southeast of the country as well on prime, prime sites. Thanks. And a broad idea of the base volume. For this year? Yeah. What are we saying? Including JVs, somewhere between 16,000 and 17,000 units. Up to 24, yeah. Great. And then, sorry, the final sub-question was just around working capital. I think you're flagging to us that it's gonna be a positive inflow over the next number of years in aggregate. Correct me if I'm wrong. I just wonder how that stacks up against a business that's growing quite a bit from a volume perspective and the land bank needs that come with that. Maybe it's more than paid for by the extra cash up front, and I don't know if there's a pound million number you'd throw away on that or not, but just the interplay of those two. Yeah, I mean, that's exactly right. So the amount released from the Housebuilding land bank will not only fund that extra distribution, but will also provide funding for that extra investment and the growth of working capital. Okay. Thanks. It's John Fraser -Andrews, HSBC. Three for me, please. Just looking at the Partnerships map, clearly very strong in England. Only gap seems to be Cumbria. Wales and Scotland seem to be potentials. So any thoughts on that, please? Just on that, because we'll forget, John. Wales, we are moving into Wales. Great place to be, he says biasedly. Scotland, no plans to move into Scotland as we sit here or stand here at the moment. And then, Vistry Works. Can you just elaborate what this is generating in terms of opportunity for the business and, and also where the costs are versus traditional build at the moment? Yeah. Yeah, can do. So look, it's a, it's a massive opportunity for the business. Piece I didn't comment on, but is absolutely there. You know, the housing market is gonna take off. There is gonna be a labor shortage again in the sector, so timber frame is gonna be a real benefit to that in terms of production on site. Right this second, the costs are close, probably a little bit more in terms of the timber frame, but the drive for absolutely using the capacity, standard homes, standard designs, you know, we can see a way where this will actually be a better and more, you know, cheaper form of production into the future. You know, we've been working through things like logistics, so virtually most of our production in partnership in the Midlands is already timber frame, but we can see how we can expand that, logistics across the whole country. So it is a significant opportunity, and I haven't even mentioned, of course, you know, the sustainable nature of that production and how that helps us hit our targets in the future. I mentioned 2025 rates as well then? Well, that's exactly what I was talking about. Yeah I n terms of hitting, you know, 2025 and beyond, in truth, in terms of some of the technologies that we're already using with some of our partners, which I'm pleased to say they are also paying for. So the opportunities in the future through the manufacturing internally are significant. Are any partners mandating timber frame panel construction? Yes, definitely so. First thing to recognize is that the investment made by Homes England through its strategic partnering program does give an additional grant level for every affordable home that is using a form of MMC, and our factories tick that box, so that is an additional income that helps us deliver, which is very good. And then on public land, you wouldn't be surprised to learn that Homes England and some local authorities are also asking for uses of MMC in developing homes. They can see the advantage in terms of faster delivery, but also looking to have an investment in the MMC itself. That's an opportunity for us to work with some of our smaller SME partners, going back to that responsible developer piece as well, where they can draw on some of our capacity in our factories and draw on our experience in order to participate in modern methods and meet those 2025 regulatory requirements. Just on that, if you take the land market, Homes England, the GLA, are huge landowners, which are being added to all the time. Our success rate, because of the way we can bid for these pieces of land, which isn't always just price with regards to timber frame, our sustainability credentials, et cetera, et cetera. Stephen, is what? Are we winning one in every bid for Homes England? Yeah, maybe one in three, Greg. Yeah. So our success rate is huge, which is important with them being such a huge provider of land. Final one is on those 30,000 House building plots and the transition to Partnerships. Can you just flesh out how in practice this is going to work, particularly those private sale ones? I get the forward sales element that, that's easier to stack those higher. And are there any consequences on land value for the redesigned Partnerships developments on them? Short, short answer to the last bit is no, in terms of the value, although we will accept a lower margin for a lower risk business in terms of the level of pre-sale. But in terms of the private sale, let's be honest, it's what we do day in, day out. It's what we do through the Partnerships business right now in terms of a proportion of our sales. I think I'm right in saying we had 89 private sales outlets in Partnerships through the first half. So what we are saying is we will continue with a level of private sale. So I said with it, you know, between 35% and 40% of the existing House building land bank, I think there was a number of 11,000 on the screen, 40% is about 12,000, so it could be, you know, a bit more within a range. And we will continue to sell, as we are. As I say, you know, really boosted a bit at the minute by the shared ownership options we've got, you know, through Home Stepper and others, and we've got further opportunities in that respect going forward. So business as usual, to some extent, John, and still maintaining all the good things we do within our House building business in that respect. So, pretty much every site retains its existing land value? Yes. As I say, we will be accepting a lower margin because that is the Partnerships model, and we're taking away a big, a significant part of the sales risk. We're also in a position then where we've got the forward sales production for our supply chain, so we can manage the cost base, but there shouldn't be, you know, an impact on, you know, land value per se. Thanks, sir. Thanks. Thanks. Aynsley Lammin from Investec. Just two from me, please. On the, you talk about the medium term, obviously the GBP 1 billion, and just I think FY 2024-2026. Should we assume that that's also where you see you get to the GBP 800 million operating profit? You said it's more resilient business, good growth. I was just interested in if we should assume that. The answer to that is no. Right. We've said between three and five years. I mean, that'll be our aim. But we'll be looking probably a year or two later than that. Okay. And then secondly, at the time when you did the acquisition of Countryside, you spoke about you'd be, you know, looking to consider splitting the businesses in two. Yeah. To deliver value if the market didn't recognize that value. Did you consider that this time? And looking at the way you've gone down the kind of capital return route, focused on Partnerships, should we read into that, that actually you see the outlook for House building is very structurally, you know, relatively unattractive, you think the capital return's more valued by shareholders? Just interested in your thoughts there, why you've gone down this route and not the split in the business, if you considered that. Thanks. We can go down the route that we've gone down straight away. What we said, it would be at least 2025, I think, that we would look at the Housebuilding route. And then, if you look at the risks associated with demerging, selling, whatever you want to term it, a Housebuilding business, which we saw with Countryside themselves, the risks are huge. This has got risk 'cause we're taking Housebuilding, a slightly different culture, into the Partnerships area, but we've got everyone on board, and I'm confident of doing that. It's a hell of a lot less risky than going down the route of openly and transparently saying you're going to do something with our Housebuilding business. So as of, you know, now, it's been quite difficult over the last six months, where every day someone in Housebuilding says: "Oh, you're talking about Partnerships again. You only have Partnerships," and this, that, and the other. This will make things much, much more straightforward and less risky, but with some risk. Sorry, go back there. Sorry, I must get you. Thank you. Yeah, it's Harry Goad from Berenberg. I've got two questions, please. So firstly, the piece you talked about, the circa 65% forward sales position. Can you talk a little bit about where, I guess, the risk lies on the margin, and risk obviously both being an upside thing and a downside thing, but how should we think about that? I appreciate vast majority of developments are probably structured in slightly different ways, but can you talk through how you think about your planning for that. And then the second piece is with regard to the open market sales. I think you said about 35% on average. And I guess the benefit you have there, from what you're saying, is you've got typically a third-party capital provider. How should we think about the margin you're looking to achieve on those open market sales on a partnership site? Thank you. Do you want to take that, Earl? Yeah, I'll try and remember all of that, Harry. Thank you. Let me take the margins 'cause it's easier just to think about the Partnerships model as a whole. So we will flex our margin. You know, so if we're 50% pre-sold, we would expect a higher overall margin to be delivered, to deliver a 40% return on capital, than if we're 75% or even 100% pre-sold, which we would be happy to do in the right circumstances. We would accept a lower margin for that and still look to deliver a 40% return on capital. So the margin, you know, we will, we will flex in terms of delivering. We've talked about some of the pre-sale deals that we've done through Housebuilding this year, so that is, I suppose, the first parts of migration, and we've said we've seen discounts of somewhere between 5%-15% on those deals, and that impact will flow through on a proportion of the Housebuilding land bank and therefore the margin. You know, we might expect to see the same sort of thing going forward as we migrate. But every new development, as I've just described, it is a range of margin to hit 40%. But in simplicity as well, adding to that, you know, on the 35% for sale, we would still be looking to have a 25% gross margin on that. Yeah. So that's where we are on that. So what we're looking to do is, you know, if Housebuilding had lots of schemes of 100 houses. If you just take the last few years, 25 of those 100 would be affordable at Section 106, do a deal with the housing association. What we're looking to do on all of the Housebuilding sites is take that 25%, which could be 30, but just keep it simple, 25%, to between 50% and hopefully 65%, leaving 35 to sell. So the overall margin on the Housebuilding side of 25% will come down lower, nearer to that 12% overall blended margin, which we've said about 12% plus. It's as simple as that, and that's all we're looking to do, is to pre-sell over and above what we have to do as a planning obligation in Housebuilding, in any case. Which is what Housebuilding, our Housebuilding business, have been doing successfully over the last nine months anyway, in the face of tougher market conditions, and it's what other housebuilders are doing as well. What we're doing is we are strategizing what we've been doing to an extent. Other housebuilders will go back to being a housebuilder as and when the market gets better. All right? Oh, over here, Alastair. Hi, Alastair Stewart from Progressive Equity Research. Really just a question on the sales rate excluding the multi-unit sales. It was 0.41 for the first half in total, but it started off pretty strong up until April-ish, went down after the inflation figures, and you've said that it's been pretty stable for the last four weeks. For two weeks, we've been about 0.35. For t he last. 0.35 for the last. For the last four weeks, and probably about 0.4 for the last eight weeks. 4. And how. That's excluding any bulk sales. Excluding, yeah. But it does include Home Stepper, which is our shared equity vehicle. How low did it get after the bad inflation data, you know, May, June? Yeah. We probably had a couple of weeks where it might have gone just a little bit lower than that. Yep, so that was. But not much. And the encouraging thing has been, you know, it would generally, in a normal market, get lower anyway. Yeah. As you go through July and August, it should be starting to pick up now, and probably the last couple of weeks. It's been pretty stable, yeah. S lightly, slightly better. But, so some of that will be, the market, but I think it's been encouraging for all, households, is that it's been relatively stable, with prices holding firm and the increases in incentives over the last, couple of months. Okay, thank you. Morning. Sam Cullen from Peel Hunt. Two from me, please. Firstly, on the. I think you said 32 going to 27 regions, can you give us an idea of where those five are, are likely to disappear from? I think, well, one is London. We're going from four to three, and I can say that 'cause that's already under Mike, underway. And I think we'd rather not say, 'cause obviously, we're starting consultation over the next couple of days with staff, so that's for sure. Yeah, understood. Secondly, just Stephen's kind of numbers around the order book and the work on the bench. Can you give us some comments around sort of the breadth and depth of the work on the bench, and how that's kind of changed in terms of versus six months ago, your ability to kind of pull it off the bench and into production and get spades in the ground? Okay, so it's fairly much a continuum. I wouldn't say that that is slowing down in terms of planning. We've definitely seen in London, there's been an impact in terms of the speed with which we can bring things forward and convert, because of the planning process associated with second staircases, and that has definitely had an impact. In terms of people wanting to work with us, in terms of work on the bench, which we've been awarded or where we're winning, we're still bidding for land, we're still having conversations with local authorities and Registered Providers who are bringing schemes to us, and we're also continuing to take our land opportunities to them as well. So the work on the bench is sustained, and I would say the opportunity, as I say, with local authorities, is growing, and the PRS providers are wanting to see those portfolio deals, particularly the Single Family opportunity. All right. Thanks. Clyde Lewis at Peel Hunt as well. I think I've still got three. One probably for Stephen around HA funding and the pressures on housing associations to smarten up their existing stock. Clearly, there's a lot of pressure from Gove and the rest of the government to do that. So it'd be useful to just get a bit of an update as to where those pressures lie and how that's evolving. You want to take that, Stephen? Yeah. Okay, so, those pressures on housing associations are particularly severe when you're looking at the London-based associations, where there are tall buildings and building safety issues. But housing associations are also having to deal with reinvesting in their stock. You will have seen all of the headlines around mold, all of the issues around, Decent Homes standards. That's very much a current issue, and so housing associations are increasing. The reason their interest cover is going down, they're increasing their spend on maintenance, and that's been a pressure for them. So those housing associations are having to take that into account and also plan for decarbonizing this old stock, which is an issue, so you'll see portfolio sales happening as well, where there's old stock that can't be mitigated. So that's all weighing on housing associations. It's weighing in an uneven way, so there are some housing associations who are saying, "Our response is to cut back our development program for the next period by 20% or 30%." And there are other housing associations who don't have those liabilities, perhaps don't have lots of tall buildings, perhaps don't have stock that's older, are able to invest and continue to deliver new homes. So it remains very much a liquid sector there. A lot of their funding is long-term dated, so I think something like 56% of their loan book is still ten-year fixes, so they're not feeling the pressure of current interest rates coming through. So, their housing associations, as a whole, are continuing to invest in scale, but you need to make sure that you're working with the partners who are keen to invest in that area at that time, because it's not as even as it was before. Second question I had was around the forward order book, and I think Tim mentioned sort of bulk sales, and obviously that's going to become probably a much bigger part of the group going forward. Yeah. How should we expect that forward order book to evolve? I mean, if you've got 65% sort of pre-sold. Should we be thinking you've got, suddenly got 65% of the full year revenues sold? Or are you going to get some big lumps within the annual numbers? No, that's what you should do, but it would also evolve as you go through the year. W hen we buy a piece of land with the Partnerships model, you can buy a piece of land during the course of the year and take a profit because you'll do a turn with a housing association, for instance, on day one. You don't get that with House building. So if House building were to buy a piece of land during the course of 2023, we'd be lucky to make a profit in 2024 with the issues with planning, which are getting no easier, by the way. With the Partnerships model, you buy the land, and you're turning it to a partner. Every single site that we work with has a partner. There is a profit to be made on day one. Okay. So it gives us more flexibility with that. But yes, but generally, the forward order book has got to get better and greater. Thank you, and the last one was really around Partner Delivery and joint ventures, and I suppose, you know, bigger focus on Partnerships. Does that mean P artner Delivery actually increases a little bit now going forward, but not as fast as the rest of the business? I would say the Partner Delivery part of the business will be relatively stable. It might grow a little bit, but we're still looking to the Mixed Tenures development is where we're looking to the growth to come, which is the high margin. But we won't be looking for Partner Delivery to drop, probably grow a little bit, but mostly be stable over the next couple of years, I would say. Okay. And, and JVs as a share of the group would be smaller, the same or, or bigger? No, I think about the same. About the same. So it'll be a bigger, but the Partnerships business will be bigger with House building, so there will be some more JVs coming through on them. Good. Oh, sorry. I've got Glynis. Nearly missed you. How could I do that? So many questions. About time. Page 32, you talked about the proportion. You've talked all through the presentation about proportion of forward sold you'd like to have. Can we just clarify, are we talking revenue or are we talking proportion of units? I guess I'm asking, is the selling price on the forward sold stuff the same as the private for sale? Do you want to take that, Earl? So, so look, it's not an exact science, Glynis, but we would look, you know, normally at the number of homes, to be honest, and yes, we're talking about a discount for the pre-sale, so the ASP and the private will be higher on average than those pre-sales. Okay, but the numbers there are unit proportions? Okay. Second of all, the 8,500 plots in House building that you're looking to pre-sell. Yeah. Should we assume that comes at the 5%-15% discounts? Yes, I would. I wouldn't say 5%-15%, I would say closer to the 15%, Glynis. Okay. Discussions are going on with that as we speak. Perfect. The Linden First, the RP, is that gonna be on balance sheet, or is that gonna have a partner be off balance sheet? Ooh. It's a good question. We'd like to see it off balance sheet. We are, you know, not a long-term holder of property, of capital, so we would like a provider of capital to come in and take, I suppose, the long-term financial reward of that, but to be a very significant delivery destination for a full range of tenures of product that we are delivering in their thousands year-on-year. So we will be going out with Linden First. I mean, from a strategy perspective, it's a massive potential for us, which is pretty much untapped at the moment. We'll be looking to go out and get funding for that as a for-profit housing association. That could be a huge option. It's a great opportunity for someone to invest in. Well done, Tim. In terms of the regional split, South Midlands and North are in three different areas, and forgive me, I only know really the sort of miles Newcastle to Chester. I know is about 200, haven't done it recently. In that area, that's a lot to do with the two Divisional Chairmen and their geographies, where they live, plus the business units that they've currently got and their relationships. So that's the only area. The rest of it is geography. Those two areas are geography plus existing relationships, internally and externally. So each of those three parts of division will have someone looking at it? No, no, no. Because it's a long way for someone to travel- So the- For overview. No, the purple, the three purple bits are one division looked after by the same divisional chair. There's another divisional chair looking after the light blue, and as I mentioned in the presentation, those two people have been responsible looking after that geography as a whole since the beginning of the year. So as Greg just said, we've split it based on internal and external key relationships, and the two people, James and Adam, work very closely together, and I'm sure that will continue. Okay. Brands on site. Sorry, one last thing. The six divisional chairs come from House building, Vistry, Partnerships and Countryside Partnerships, so there's a split amongst it. The benefit of House building Partnerships, you told us previously, was getting a number of brands on site. What's gonna happen to Bovis? What's gonna happen to Linden? We'll still have those three brands. All under the partnership banner? Yeah. Okay, two more, sorry. In your state, Tim, actually, you talked about potential for tax to reduce in the medium term. I didn't see a time limit in terms of Residential Developers Tax. It was supposed to be ten years, but I don't believe that was in there. So what are you knowing that we don't know? I know nothing. I'm just hoping. Okay. But, I mean, you should say we are looking at, you know, is Partner Delivery a Residential Property Tax? I don't know. Is what we're doing, you know, which is for the greater good. You know, we will certainly be having discussions with the relevant people as to whether it's all, should, or, all the profits we make should come under the, extra 4% Residential Property Tax. We're looking at that. Okay. One final one, you'll be glad to hear. Tim, again, you talked about eliminating net debt. If a third of your, your billion returns is coming from capital release, when you talk about eliminating net debt, is that net debt after land creditors? One would assume so, given a partnership structure doesn't really use those land creditors. Well, Countryside Partnerships does use land creditors. We, I think our target, the target they're setting out is for average, is to eliminate average net debt before land creditors. I think we're happy that, that there could be some degree of adjusted net debt on the balance sheet. In other words, land creditors could be higher than our cash balance at the end of the year, and so there's not, not, an immediate target within 3-5 years. But I think in terms of an overall adjusted gearing level, we'd want to reduce that. We're, we're not, firm on a target, but a rough, a rough order of magnitude is sort of a 10% adjusted gearing. One more. Thanks, Glynis. From Citi. Just two questions for me. One was on strategy. Partnerships with a 50% pre-sales level, how different is it structurally from your Housebuilding business, given that you're retaining all the other brands as well? If you just take that with what the Housebuilding business has been doing over the last nine months in a more difficult market, it isn't that big a shift, as you might think. So it's not that big a shift. The other question was just on the overheads in the business. Once we have switched the strategy by 2026, potentially, how does the business look from an overheads perspective? Structurally, is there something. About 5%. Okay. And the last one, just on the 2024 guidance, do we assume that at the operating level, you're guiding for a similar level, and you get financial cost savings on top of that? No, on, at a gross profit level, yes. We'd then be looking to save on interest, which would go to your profit. We'd also be looking to save on overheads as well. So, a good proportion of that GBP 25 million additional synergy savings from bringing this in, not all of it, would also come into that. Thank you. Okay, Tim? Yep. Okay, thanks very much. 10:10 A.M., not bad. Thank you!