Paul Pedley stands down as Redrow boss, Gleeson announce more losses in building division and housebuilders report a flat market.

It's been a busy day for announcements as company's make their final trading statements ahead of the results season.

  • Paul Pedley has stepped down as chief executive of Redrow and has been replaced by Neil Fitzsimmons. Pedley will remain on the Redrow board as executive deputy chairman. The news came as the housebuilder announced that results for the year ended June 2005 would be ahead of last year. There were 4,372 completions, an increase of 2% on the previous year. Redrow said that selling prices were stable though the sales rate per site was below the usual level. It predicted that the housing market would benefit from changes to the pension regime in April 2006.


  • Westbury Homes said that activity levels in the housing market were lower than expected, but said it expected excellent results for the financial year. The housebuilder said it would strive to increase sales outlets and said that it had 115 current sales sites with 60 more schemes in the planning pipeline.


  • Gleeson has admitted that it will make substantial potential losses on a number of completed contracts for the year to 30 June 2005. The losses are in addition to the £16.6m losses that Gleeson said the building division experienced in the first half of the financial year. Gleeson said that an MBO of the building division was at an advanced stage. Gleeson warned that the losses and restructuring costs would mean final results would be substantially below expectations. Despite this Gleeson eported strong trading in its core operations for the year to 30 June 2005.


  • ROK Property Solutions said that trading was in line with expectations for the full year despite slow growth in the first quarter. Rok said that trading in the first quarter in its building and construction activities was slower than expected and it had been affected by delayed project starts on public sector buildings. Rok said the commercial property market was buoyant in the regions. Its total order book stands at £300m.


  • Costain’s order book has been boosted by contract wins in the utilities sector. Water utilities work and an Iranian gas and oil contract helped Costain to a forward order book of £1.6bn. Costain said that the interim results for the six months to 30 June 2005 would not reflect the contract wins and would be affected by government delays in releasing funds for highways during the election.


  • Galliford Try has announced that Amanda Burton has joined its board as non-executive director.