Sudden departure for Watkin Jones chief

Richard Simpson

Chief investment officer Alex Pease is standing in as interim chief executive as of today and a search for a permanent replacement has been launched.

Richard Simpson had been chief executive since January 2019, joining from Unite Group with a £2.2m golden handshake.

However, a simultaneous trading update  from Watkin Jones reveals some financial uncertainty. “The recent increases in interest rates and prevailing economic uncertainty have impacted negatively on market liquidity,” the board said. This has increased the risk of forward sales not completing as envisioned, it said.

“We have also reviewed our balance sheet against this more challenging macro-economic backdrop and increased cost of funding. We continue to explore the sale of a limited number of non-core assets on our balance sheet and consider it prudent to reassess the carrying value of certain assets with the expectation that this will result in an impairment charge of c.£10m.

“Our schemes in build continue to progress in line with expectations. In the event that we do not complete any new forward sales in the balance of the year, and taking into account the impairment charge referenced above, we would not expect to materially improve on the Underlying PBIT recorded in H1 of £2m. Our current expectation is that these challenging market conditions will persist into FY24, and against this more cautious backdrop, our FY24 PBIT is likely to be in the range of £15m to £20m.”

Watkin Jones chair Alan Giddins said: “On behalf of the board, I would like to thank Richard for his contribution to the group over the last five years and in particular his leadership of the business through the challenges of the covid pandemic.”

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