John Tonkiss
Retirement housebuilder McCarthy & Stone has appointed John Tonkiss as its new chief executive to replace Clive Fenton, as it unveiled a business transformation strategy to help it cope with market headwinds.
Tonkiss, who was previously chief operating officer, takes up his role immediately, after Fenton retired at the end of last month.
At the same time, the business said it would shift its business from growth to increasing its return on investment, and margins.
It wants to see its return on capital expenditure rise to more than 15% by 2021, increasing to over 20% by 2023. It also wants an improvement in operating margins to more than 15% by 2021.
McCarthy & Stone said it had faced “a number of market headwinds” including political uncertainty since the Brexit vote since its IPO in November 2015 and criticised the government for its lack of support for the retirement housebuilding sector.
“These headwinds have resulted in a challenging economic backdrop, lower consumer confidence and consequently reducing volumes in the secondary housing market with UK housing transactions showing a decline of 40% since 2015,” the business said.
Commenting on the new strategy, Tonkiss added: “As the new chief executive officer of McCarthy & Stone, I am pleased to announce our new strategy which represents a shift in business mindset from growth to increasing our return on capital employed and margins.
“We are positioning the business to succeed in the current challenging market environment and over the next three years, we will be focusing on increasing shareholder returns by optimising our operations to deliver strong financial performance. In parallel, we will also aim to leverage our longer-term strategic opportunity to increase our customer appeal, diversify our revenue streams and reduce our exposure to the market cyclicality.”
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