More than 100 jobs have been axed at Bovis Homes as part of a £4 million restructuring programme.

The downsizing is due to the company aiming to "re-size the business and drive for efficiency".

In it's half year results for the six months ended 30 June 2017, the housebuilder reported a rise in revenue from £412.8m in 2016 to £427.8m this year (4%).

However, profit before tax fell 31% to £42.7m (2016; £61.7m) while total completions dropped from 1,601 last year to 1,512 in 2017.

Despite the drop, the Group said operational issues have been identified and "are all very fixable, with good progress already made".

Greg Fitzgerald, Chief Executive, said having reviewed its regional operating structure, the Group has concluded delivering delivering 4,000 new homes per annum is best served by seven rather than eight operating regions.


He added the company's performance in the first half of the year was "in-line with expectations, with completions delivered in a disciplined manner"

"As previously announced, we have intentionally slowed our rate of production for 2017 as we re-set the business and address operational issues," he said.

"Total average selling price was up 9% to £277.4k (H1 2016: £254.5k) largely driven by changes in mix including completions in the period on a number of our higher end sites.  Underlying pricing remains robust with a modest increase in the period.

"As expected, the Group's first half profitability was impacted by increased build costs within our cost base brought into the year and an overweight operating structure for the reduced volume.  We also increased our investment across the business, in particular on customer service and site presentation.

"As previously announced, an additional £3.5m one-off customer care provision was taken in the first half to ensure that all legacy customer issues are dealt with before the end of 2017, and we incurred one-off advisory costs of £2.8m related to bid approaches.

"We continue to see good opportunities in the land market and with our reduced land requirement in 2017 we are able to be even more selective.  We saw good pull-through from our strategic land bank in the half, including high quality sites at Bishop Stortford and Witney."

(LM)