Barratt Developments has furloughed 85% of its workers and warned it expected further home completions to be “very limited”.
The housebuilder employs around 6,500 people, which means that just over 5,500 of them are now on furlough until at least the end of May.
In a trading update, Barratt said that it had delivered 1,349 home completions between 23 March and 12 April, making a total of 11,713 completions for the year to12 April 2020. With its sites now closed, very few further completions are expected.
The business has also suspending all land buying activity and postponed all non-essential capital expenditure. All executive directors, the wider executive and regional managing director team, the chairman and the non-executive directors have also agreed to a voluntary 20% reduction in base salary and fees, until the group is able to restart work on site. They have also agreed to waive any salary or fee increase for 2021, while a dividend originally due to shareholders next month has been cancelled.
Barratt added that it has £450m of cash and total committed bank facilities and private placement notes of £900m.
