Persimmon eyes top-end completions but flags increasing cost pressures

Persimmon PLC on Thursday backed full-year guidance after better-than-forecast interim results but stressed market conditions remain challenging for housebuilders in the UK, with affordability constraints and build-cost pressures.

The York, England-based company said pretax profit increased 15% to £168.0 million in the six months that ended June 30 from £146.7 million a year prior.

Underlying operating profit grew 10% to £189.1 million from £172.0 million, beating Visible Alpha-cited market consensus of £176.8 million.

Revenue rose 15% to £1.73 billion from £1.50 billion a year earlier, well ahead of £1.58 billion consensus.

Persimmon posted a 13% increase in new home completions to 5,189 from 4,605 a year before, compared to 4,865 VA consensus, and expects to deliver around 12,500 completions in all of 2026, at the upper end of previous guidance of 12,000 to 12,500 homes. This would be 5.0% higher than 2025's total of 11,905.

The FTSE 100 listing expects full-year underlying pretax profit to be in line with company compiled consensus of £491 million, growth of 4.0% from 2025's £472.1 million. Underlying pretax profit was £170.1 million in the first half of the year, up 3.2% from £164.9 million a year before.

Net debt or cash at year end in December is seen to be in line with previous guidance.

Persimmon left its interim dividend unchanged at 20p per share.

In response, shares in Persimmon rose 3.3% to 1,160.25 pence each in London on Thursday.

Chief Executive Dean Finch said the company put in a "strong first half performance" in a tough market.

"Market conditions remain challenging, with affordability constraints and build cost pressures affecting the sector," he said.

The housebuilder expects additional inflationary pressure in 2027 including as a result of the conflict in the Middle East, which it does not expect to fully mitigate.

Persimmon reported an improved net private sales rate in the first half at 0.75 per outlet per week, compared to 0.70 the year before. This slowed to 0.72 in the five weeks since June 30, although this is still a tick up from 0.68 a year ago.

"In line with the broader market, open market sales have softened slightly in recent weeks," Persimmon observed, noting weaker website traffic in July.

To counter this, Persimmon said it has recently launched its summer marketing campaign and is on track to open around 100 gross new outlets in the current year to help drive further sales.

Its current private forward order book has grown to £1.31 billion as at June 30 from £.25 billion the year prior.

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