Change at the top for Persimmon as house sales continue to improve
HOUSEBUILDER Persimmon today announced that chief executive Mike Farley is to retire after almost 30 years with the company.
Mr Farley, who has been chief executive for the last seven years, is to step down at the company’s AGM on April 18 when he will be replaced by Jeff Fairburn, group managing director and north division chief executive.
The news came as the York-based group announced a trading update ahead of its final results which showed that it increased revenues by 12% to £1.72bn with new home sales up by 6% last year to 9,903 with an average selling price also up 6% to £173,400 (2011: £163,999).
Mr Fairburn, who has spent 23 years with Persimmon and been on the board for the last three years, takes over from Mr Farley as part of the group’s long term succession plan.
Nigel Greenaway, the south division chief executive, will join the board as an executive director while Marion Sears, a director of Dunelm Group and Octopus AIM VCT, has been appointed today as non-executive director.
Neil Davidson, CBE, who has been a non-executive director since January 2004, will retire from the board at the AGM.
Chairman Nicholas Wrigley said: “Mike Farley has been an outstanding chief executive and has made an enormous contribution to the development of Persimmon over many years. The announcement in February 2012 of our new long term strategy and £1.9bn capital return plan over nine and a half years is a testament to his strong leadership, strategic clarity and long-term planning. He will leave Persimmon with our gratitude and best wishes for his retirement.”
“Jeff Fairburn is a talented and experienced executive who knows the Persimmon business extremely well. He played a key role in the development of the new strategy and will now play the central role in its delivery.”
Mike Farley said: “It has been a great privilege to be group chief executive for the last seven years. The company is in great shape and well positioned to deliver on our new strategy, and I’m confident that it will become an even stronger and bigger business over the coming years.”
Persimmon today said that Dave Jenkinson, currently a regional chairman, has been appointed north division chief executive and it is restructuring from three operating divisions, north, central and south into two divisions, north and south with Persimmon’s 24 operating businesses split evenly between these divisions.
The group said it is in a “robust” position to deliver its long term strategy with it predicting an underlying operating margin of 13% for the year, up from 10% last year and it has a target of improving it to between 15% and 17%.
It acquired 9,400 plots of land in the second half of the year and now holds 68,000 plots while its cash balances have improved from £41m to £200m.
Sales to first time buyers are set to increase as it is involved in the Government sponsored FirstBuy scheme.
The group will announce its results for the year to December 31 on February 25.
