Crest Nicholson plans job cuts and warns on profits, blaming budget uncertainty
The housebuilder Crest Nicholson has warned of job cuts and worse than expected profits after a summer of “subdued” sales amid uncertainty around the possible property taxes in the budget,The Surrey-based company said it planned to close one divisional office and cut 50 roles, including staff at that site and “selective other roles” across the business,Crest said its adjusted profit before tax for the year to 31 October would be at the low end or slightly below the previous estimated range of £28m to £38m, “reflecting a housing market that has remained subdued through the summer, and the continued uncertainty surrounding government tax policy ahead of the forthcoming budget” on 26 November,It cautioned that near-term market conditions were likely to remain challenging,Anthony Codling, a housing analyst at RBC Capital Markets, said budget uncertainty had “wiped out the autumn selling season, a critical period for Crest with an October year-end”.
The late timing of the budget has led to a long period of speculation around changes to stamp duty, as well as potential income tax rises and a new mansion tax.Rival housebuilder Taylor Wimpey has also reported a drop in sales in the vital autumn period, and the London estate agent Foxtons has taken a hit as potential buyers are holding back purchases.Jennie Daly, the Taylor Wimpey chief executive, has urged the government to announce more support for first-time buyers to revive the cooling property market.Crest said it had completed 1,691 homes in the past financial year, at the lower end of its range of 1,700 to 1,900 homes, including 35% affordable units.Sign up to Business TodayGet set for the working day – we'll point you to all the business news and analysis you need every morningafter newsletter promotionIts weekly rate of open-market sales for each site was 0.
51 for the year, compared with 0.48 in 2024, although the rate declined to 0.45 in the last quarter of its financial year.Crest has sold five land parcels from larger sites as it trims its landbank, and is working on a new house type range.“Crest is in the early stages of a multi-year turnaround plan,” Codling said.
“Turnarounds are very rarely linear, and we believe that overall they are on the right trajectory (right-sizing the landbank and right-sizing the business), and the current headwinds could become tailwinds as the government continues to look for ways to stimulate new housing supply,”
Spanish Armada-era astrolabe returns to Scilly after mysterious global journey
It spent hundreds of years languishing on the seabed off the Isles of Scilly in the far south-west of Britain before being hauled back to the surface by divers and setting off a circumnavigation of the world.Finally the Pednathise Head astrolabe – a rare example of a 16th-century navigational instrument once used by sailors to determine latitude – is back on Scilly after being rediscovered on the other side of the Atlantic.It turns out that after being sold and leaving the UK, the astrolabe passed through private collections in Australia and the US, its true identity forgotten along the way, before ending up in a museum on the Florida Keys.“It’s been on quite a journey,” said Xavier Duffy, the curator of the Isles of Scilly Museum. “We’re thrilled to have it back on Scilly and in the care of the museum
My Cultural Awakening: I moved across the world after watching a Billy Connolly documentary
I was 23 and thought I had found my path in life. I’d always wanted to work with animals, and I had just landed a job as a vet nurse in Melbourne. I was still learning the ropes, but I imagined I would stay there for years, building a life around the work. Then, five months in, the vet called me into his office and told me it wasn’t working out. “It’s not you,” he said, “I just really hate training people
The Running Man to David Hockney: your complete entertainment guide to the week ahead
Stephen King’s dystopian novel gets an Edgar Wright reboot with Glen Powell, while the prolific British master is back with new paintingsThe Running ManOut nowEdgar Wright directs this reimagining of the 1987 sci-fi cult classic based on Stephen King’s 1982 novel, which envisioned a fictional America of 2025 sliding into totalitarianism. Glen Powell stars as the contestant attempting to survive a deadly televised game.Now You See Me: Now You Don’tOut nowThis third film in the magic-heist franchise reunites Jesse Eisenberg, Woody Harrelson, Dave Franco and Isla Fisher as the Four Horsemen. Directed by Ruben Fleischer (Zombieland), the new instalment sees the gang target a massive diamond. Expect more sleight-of-hand shenanigans
The Guide #217: The Louvre heist seems straight out of a screenplay – no wonder on-screen capers have us gripped
It was like something out of a movie. On the morning of 19 October, news broke of a heist at the Louvre in Paris: four thieves, disguised as construction workers, had made off with eight “priceless” pieces of French crown jewels from the 19th century. They also took a crown that once belonged to Empress Eugénie, wife of Napoleon III, but for some reason dropped it outside the museum. The haul has since been valued by a prosecutor at around €88m.The details of the case are astonishing, from the robbery itself – the thieves arrived in broad daylight, using a truck with a mechanical ladder to access the targeted gallery’s window, which they cut through with power tools – to subsequent revelations about the museum’s security measures
Seth Meyers on Trump: ‘The most unpopular president of all time’
Seth Meyers spoke about rising tensions within the Republican party with Donald Trump losing support from his base over the Jeffrey Epstein scandal.The Late Night host spoke about yesterday’s dramatic meeting in the situation room to discuss Epstein, an ongoing crisis that has seen the president becoming “wildly unpopular”.Meyers said that Trump is “by all the accounts the most unpopular president of all time” and up until this point has only been “able to hang on to power because he has a tight grip on the Republican party no matter what he did or how bad things got”.But a new poll shows that only 33% of American adults approve of how the president is managing the government, a figure that’s down from March with the fall driven by Republicans or independents.Meyers called this “a meaningful and real development” and “it’s not coming out of thin air” with Trump “pissing off Maga” in multiple ways
Colbert on Trump and Epstein: ‘They were best pals and underage girls was Epstein’s whole thing’
Late-night hosts covered this week’s latest bombshell Epstein and Trump revelations and spoke about the president’s latest interview with Laura Ingraham.On The Late Show, Stephen Colbert spoke about the government shutdown likely coming to an end after “an historic impasse” (the shutdown later did end) and Democrat Adelita Grijalva being sworn in as a member of Congress, seven weeks after she won a special House election in Arizona.Colbert said she has been “reborn from the ashes” and will be the 218th and final signature needed to force a vote to release the Jeffrey Epstein files.He joked that on her first day she was shown around and told “down there is the room where you’re going to topple the pervert cabal”.This week saw some new emails from Epstein released which suggest Trump knew of his conduct
Stock market sell-off continues, as Google boss warns ‘no company immune’ if AI bubble bursts – business live
Crest Nicholson plans job cuts and warns on profits, blaming budget uncertainty
‘Fear really drives him’: is Alex Karp of Palantir the world’s scariest CEO?
Don’t blindly trust everything AI tools say, warns Alphabet boss
The Breakdown | Could new Nations Championship transform Test rugby? The jury is out
Mark Wood declared fit for first Ashes Test as England seamers ‘lick their lips’ at surface