Glenveagh Properties PLC (GVR) Earnings Call Transcript & Summary

Hello and welcome to the Glenveagh 2022 half year results. I'm going to hand over to host to begin.

Thank you, moderator, and welcome everyone to Glenveagh's 2022 results call. If you please would go to the website and Investor Relations and you'll see the presentation deck there. Unfortunately, we haven't been able to upload it at this moment. Joining me here in Maynooth is my colleague, Michael Rice, our Chief Financial Officer. We are pleased to report on the continued progress made by Glenveagh to deliver on our significant ambitions on the 3 business segments despite the near-term challenges faced by the business in the period. To begin, if you could please turn to Page 4 where we have set out our operational highlights, which demonstrates Glenveagh's strong progress in the period. As you can see, we continued to make substantial progress across the 3 business segments, which provides us with greater visibility for 2022 and beyond. Our Suburban segment has successfully delivered 257 units in the period with 1,831 reservations in the forward order book. Of the 1,400 unit target for 2022, all units are now standing and are either closed or in contract. Our Urban segment has made transformational progress with transactions signed or closed in 2022 for over EUR 310 million of total revenue resulting in a net reduction of capital deployed in land in this segment to 13% of the group's total land bank. Our Partnership segment is on track to deliver over 2,050 units for local authorities focused on social, affordable and private and cost-rental homes with planning lodgements for both Oscar Traynor Road and Ballymastone expected in the second half of 2022. The progress across the 3 business segments has been supported by a highly attractive land bank, continued operational excellence and further supply integration, which has been underpinned by the overriding commitment to sustainability. The group continues to align with market opportunities by focusing on the deepest segment being first-time buyers through our Suburban portfolio with 69% of units priced below EUR 350,000. That is supportive of the Housing for All initiatives including First Home scheme, cost-rental and social housing. The group's offsite manufacturing delivery capabilities and innovation potential continues to be enhanced with the acquisition of Harmony Timber Frame Solutions and the completion of our Light Gauge Steel manufacturing partnership. The group is meeting the challenge of scaling our business whilst continuing to deliver against our sustainability objectives and the publication of our Net Zero pathway on track for Q4 2022. Lastly, the combination of these efforts and our disciplined capital allocation approach has resulted in considerable balance sheet efficiency and EPS progress generating significant shareholder returns of EUR 87 million in the period. Moving to Page 5. Our Suburban segment continues to provide an attractive product offering for the deepest segment of the market at an affordable price where 93% of our suburban product is priced at EUR 400,000 or less and 75% is aligned with the First Home scheme. Additionally, 50% of the completed units in the period have the highest building energy rating of A1, providing significant energy cost savings to consumers and aligning with our sustainability focus. The continued strong demand and attractiveness of our Suburban segment is evident throughout our performance in the period. The group completed the sale of 257 units, which represents a 31% increase from last year. Of the 1,400 unit target for 2022, all units are now standing and are either closed or in contract. The current group Suburban forward order book consists of 1,831 units, which translates into EUR 588 million of revenue. The positive reservation performance can be seen in the average weekly private reservation rate of 1.5 per site in the first half of the year, which represents a 25% improvement versus H1 2021. The initiatives we launched at the end of 2021 continued to benefit the business with our dedicated after-care department helped drive our customer satisfaction rating to 92% in the period and the improved brand awareness positioning Glenveagh as a homebuilder of choice. Overall, this segment continues to be well positioned to deliver Lasting Communities across Ireland where people can't afford and want to live. On Page 6, we have outlined the significant progress the group has made in the monetization of our Urban assets that has transformed this segment. As a percentage of the overall land portfolio, our Urban assets have decreased from 37% in June 2020 to now representing 13% of the portfolio. To-date in 2022, the group has monetized Urban assets generating over EUR 310 million of total revenues across 4 projects consisting of East Road in Dublin Docklands for a cash consideration of approximately EUR 63 million, which brings the total revenue generated in the Dublin Docklands to over EUR 210 million. 320 apartments in Barn Oaks, Citywest in Dublin for approximately EUR 100 million. This site is now under construction and has delivered a land sale and development revenue in H1 of approximately EUR 33 million. 190 apartments in Castleknock in Dublin for approximately EUR 80 million. In line with other forward fund transactions, the land sale will be recognized in H2 along with revenue from any construction activity completed in the period. 140 residential units in Cluain Mhuire, Blackrock in Dublin for approximately EUR 70 million. This is somewhat different to the group's forward fund strategy in the urban division, but given its scale, we believe that a forward sale is the most attractive exit strategy for the business. As this transaction is a forward sale, all revenue and profits will be recognized at completion, which is currently forecasted in 2024. Overall, the Urban assets monetized to-date will generate total revenue for the group of over EUR 600 million with EUR 270 million of this revenue to be recognized in future periods. The continued monetization of our Urban land portfolio has contributed significantly to the improving group's return on equity, provided excess capital for shareholder returns and gives management confidence of reaching our 15% return on equity target by 2024. Now let's turn to the next section on Page 8 where we would like to provide an update on the economic, legislative and planning environment with analysis on our current land bank against this backdrop. The Irish economy continues to show remarkable resilience despite the continued supply chain disruptions and the emerging energy and fuel crisis with GDP expected to remain strong in 2022 albeit that with a tougher economic outlook ahead. Continuing full employment levels is driving wage inflation, which in turn is driving demand as seen by record mortgage approvals. Continuing to Page 9, the data reaffirms that Ireland needs well over 35,000 new homes a year or more than 400,000 within the next decade. Housing completions are not keeping pace with demand. The compounding nature of missed completion target is widening the gap between required and actual completions. Further to this, commencement of houses are beginning to fall as completions are peaking leading to the expected downturn in completions into the future. These indicators need to be considered in the context of the ever-growing population and the resulting impact on these on the supply and demand imbalance. Turning to Page 10. There are a number of Irish government policy initiatives that are aimed at supporting much-needed housing supply. As the overall objective, the Housing for All plan aims to deliver over 300,000 housing units by 2030. It aims to secure the delivery of large scale sustainable mixed tenure communities through a range of schemes mainly focused on shared equity, Help-to-Buy, cost-rental, affordable purchase and social housing. I would like to outline the current experience of some of the policy initiatives. The First Home scheme was launched in July 2022 and we will see this take up to 30% stake in new homes of first-time buyers and eligible buyers who will take out a mortgage with a bank for the remainder of the cost. There is an example of how this scheme will work on Page 11. Glenveagh has seen 29 customers to-date utilizing the scheme with these units expected to close in 2022. Further strong demand is anticipated with the favorable terms of the scheme supporting affordability with 75% of our Suburban portfolio qualifying for the scheme. Glenveagh is well positioned to benefit from this in the future. Help-to-Buy continues to be a significant support for first-time buyers with over 75% of Glenveagh purchasers having availed of the scheme in 2022. A welcome benefit of the scheme can be used in conjunction with the First Home scheme further enhancing affordability. Cost-rental housing provides affordable rental accommodation to people on middle incomes where approved housing bodies and state agencies purchase cost-rental units from the private market and rent these out at rates of 25% below market rents. It is aimed at people who are above the threshold for social housing. Glenveagh has closed 16 units year-to-date and an additional 112 units are due to close by year-end. All of these initiatives are the largest investment in housing in the history of the state with the positive effect of policy measures beginning to emerge, but yet to materially impact housing delivery. Turning to Page 12 where we provide an update on the current land bank from a mix, customer and planning perspective. A key strategic priority for the business has been to reduce the net investment in land and improve balance sheet efficiency. In line with this priority, the group has monetized a significant portion of our Urban assets and through a disciplined and strategic approach to land acquisitions, acquired Suburban land at attractive rates to ensure we maintain our land bank unit whilst reducing the net euro investment in our land. As you can see from the left and the middle pie chart, we now have achieved a land bank mix more weighted towards the Suburban and Partnership segments, which we believe aligns the group with the prevailing market opportunity. Given the recent movement in interest rates and the likely impact on yield, the group is insulated from the PRS forward fund market and is more aligned to the first-time buyer and government initiatives where affordability is strongest. Urban, as a proportion of the overall portfolio both in terms of units and potential customers, has reduced significantly with partnerships becoming a more significant proportion, which brings significant balance sheet efficiency and certainty of revenue benefits. In the year-to-date, the group has added 4 new suburban sites for a total consideration of EUR 15.7 million and these sites will deliver a total of 475 units over the coming years. This brings our land bank to approximately 15,300 units, 5,000 of which had full planning commission at the end of H1. Finally, given the level of asset monetization year-to-date, the group has strong visibility that we will materially surpass our land target of EUR 500 million or less by year-end providing significant efficiency to our balance sheet and further enhancing our return on equity. Now let's turn to the next section on Page 14 where I would like to discuss in more detail our continued investment in supply chain integration, focus on standardization and innovation in the products we deliver will allow us to mitigate the inflationary challenges. In the first half of 2022, the group saw 8% to 9% of CPI and we forecast this trend to continue into the second half of 2022. This is being driven largely by global supply constraints because of geopolitical issues, commodity price increases and energy and fuel prices. Examples of the inflationary challenge can be seen in the graphs where we've provided real examples of material price increases experienced in the last 18-month period from January 2021 with over 45% and nearly 150% increases for certain materials. The group has had to incur most of these costs as we continue to work collaboratively with our supply chain partners to secure sustainable competitive pricing while maintaining security of supply. The material element of our cost base has seen more than a 10% price inflation in H1 and due to the recent supply chain and gas supply announcements, we expect the second half of the year to remain challenging both from a cost and supply materials perspective. To mitigate these cost increases, Glenveagh continues to utilize our timber frame and soil recovery facilities, in which the business has invested over the last number of years. The labor element of our cost base has seen more muted increases in the period and encouraging labor availability as we open new construction sites. This is due to several factors with the end of all COVID unemployment schemes and the slowdown in one-off housing and the renovation markets due to significant cost price inflation. Overall, our scale advantages and our long-term commitment to supply chain partners and their manufacturing capabilities has allowed us to manage our overall cost and price inflation. With current levels of house price inflation in the new homes market, we expect the overall impact on margin to be broadly neutral. Moving to Page 15 where we've outlined the significant progress made in our manufacturing strategy. The group has incrementally expanded our timber frame production through the acquisition of Harmony Timber Frame Solutions, which brings with it a purpose-built state-of-the-art facility capable of producing 450 timber frame units per year and an experienced management team capable of expanding deliveries at our new facility in Carlow. The group has now locked in production capabilities, which guarantee supply of 1,400 high quality timber frames in 2023 with capacity growing to 2,000 over the medium term. The group has added to its delivery capabilities through entering a consultancy agreement with the Light Gauge Steel, LGS, manufacturer to achieve NSAI certification for production of light gauge steel frame at our Carlow facility with operational output of 500 frames expected in 2023, moving to 750 units in 2024. Overall, our complementary manufacturing capabilities provide us with control and reduces risk through added resilience and delivery schedules, reduces reliance on subcontractors and assuring qualities. The focus for the business is now to integrate and value maximization of these investments and, in particular, focusing on incorporating our high density and standard house types in our manufacturing process. Continuing to Page 16, I would like to speak to the Harmony Timber Frame Solutions acquisition in more detail. The acquisition has significantly increased Glenveagh's overall delivery capability and accelerated the supply of new homes, which is consistent with our ongoing strategy of vertical integration to innovate our product offering, align with evolving customer demands and meet our ambitious sustainability goals while controlling the cost in this process. Harmony employs over 50 people in Arklow and operates from a purpose-built state-of-the-art facility capable of producing 450 timber frame homes per year. The management team will remain with the business and, as I mentioned on the previous page, will take additional responsibility for accelerating production at our facility in Carlow. Turning to Page 17, let's take a closer look at the manufacturing facilities in Glenveagh. Glenveagh now has 3 strategically located facility sites. One is in our Suburban North region, which is currently in production and has already produced over 700 units in 2021, which will grow further in 2022. The second facility is in our Suburban South region, which will become fully operational in 2023. The third facility is the newly acquired Arklow facility located in the Suburban South region and is fully operational with capacity to produce 450 units. In the medium term, the facilities will have enough of capacity to deliver over 2,000 units per year and the locations of these facilities will allow us to service our sites efficiently as a nationwide homebuilder. As part of this process, we are partnering with highly capable management teams with significant manufacturing experience and track record. The cost savings associated with offsite manufacturing that I have mentioned in the previous slide has already allowed us to better manage the inflationary environment in 2021 and we are expecting further cost savings in 2022 and beyond. Moving to Page 19. Sustainability continues to be a key priority for Glenveagh and our vision is set out in the new benchmark in our sector by delivering the maximum possible social benefit at the lowest possible environmental costs. This continues to be a key priority for the group. We are continuing this journey by embedding sustainability throughout the organization by integrated sustainability into the business strategy, which will be informed by our materiality assessment and stakeholder engagement that is currently ongoing. Following on from our [ strengthened progress ] which sees responsibility for sustainability at Board, Executive and department level; the group has made further progress in our sustainability agenda by broadening our dedicated sustainability team, recruiting sustainability related roles throughout the wider business and embedding sustainability and climate risk as well as opportunities into the wider risk management process. In 2022 we will further evolve our sustainability approach, including developing a sustainability road map for the rest of the decade and publishing our transition to Net Zero. This will be informed by our engagement with our key stakeholders. Now I would like to pass you over to Michael, who will cover the financials for the period.

Thanks, Stephen, and good morning, everyone. As Stephen mentioned, the first 6 months has been a positive period for Glenveagh and obviously that's reflected in the financial performance. If we get straight into the detail and I'll start on Slide 21, our income statement for the first 6 months to 30 June. Total revenue for the period is at a nice round number of EUR 200 million flat, an increase of 57% from EUR 127.5 million for the same period last year. Total revenue as usual is split between our Suburban and Urban businesses. In the Suburban business we have EUR 89 million of revenue, which predominantly relates to the 257 units closed in the period at an ASP or average selling price of EUR 332,000. The Urban business delivered EUR 111 million of revenue from a combination of I suppose our 3 main streams: existing forward funds, new forward funds that we've done in the period and a land disposal. So as we've called out before, our East Road land disposal generated approximately EUR 63 million of revenue in the period and we're pleased with the strong price achieved certainly in the current environment. We signed a forward fund deal for 320 apartments in Citywest in the period and this generated approximately EUR 33 million of revenue in the first half. The final element of revenue relates to the continuation of our Premier Inn hotel development down in the Dublin Docklands. So overall, our revenue guidance for the full year remains at approximately EUR 630 million. In relation to gross margin, we're now kind of through the majority of our noncore disposals and therefore, thankfully we're able to kind of talk about more simplified margins with I suppose 3 different categories: the overall margin, one for Suburban and one for Urban. So our overall margin for the period was 16.5% split between 17.3% for the Suburban business and 15.8% for the Urban business. For the full year, the Suburban margin will continue to increase and will be approximately 18% with the Urban margin moderating back towards our guidance of 15% for the full year. Our admin expenses, including depreciation, are at 16.9% for the first 6 months with the expectation for the full year to be EUR 36 million split between EUR 33 million central cost and EUR 3 million depreciation and amortization. Overall, the income statement shows a healthy position for the group with EUR 13 million of profit before tax versus EUR 4.3 million for the same period last year. Lastly, we've made strong progress on our EPS albeit from a low base with EUR 0.132 for the first half, an increase of over 300% from a combination of increased profitability, but also the reduced number of shares due to our continuing share buyback programs, which we'll touch on in a bit more detail later. Moving over to Slide 22, which shows our balance sheet at 30 June. As with most years, our main focus for the business is on the inventory number so let's jump straight to that. We've continued to reduce our net investment in land with a EUR 50 million reduction in the period to give us a balance of EUR 513 million at 30 June. We've continued on this trajectory post period-end and our current land investment, as Stephen mentioned, is EUR 490 million. So we're pretty comfortable to call out that we'll materially surpass our previous target of EUR 500 million by year-end. I suppose it's important to note that this reduction isn't at the expense of our land portfolio or future growth plans as we still have over 15,000 units available to the business. Our work-in-progress at 30 June was EUR 292 million and predominantly relates to our 23 active construction sites. As usual, our peak WIP investment is up 30 June and this will unwind in the second half of the year as we deliver the remaining Suburban units to meet our targets for the year. The group's net debt position on 30 June was EUR 97.5 million versus a net cash position at year-end. I suppose given the level of investment in work-in-progress in the first half, the continued share buyback programs and just a more efficient use of our debt facilities; we've ended the period in a pretty healthy financial position. Overall and in line with our strategy, we continued to focus on capital efficiency and reduced our total equity by EUR 77 million to just over EUR 707 million, nearly a 10% reduction in the period. Moving over to Slide 23, I suppose it expands on the land trajectory over the last number of years as we've taken our net investment in land from EUR 700 million to currently below EUR 500 million as I've mentioned. This has been done through a combination of acceleration of the cash generation from our noncore sites, winning our first 2 partnership deals and I suppose we've been able to buy land more competitively in recent deals. Our land is now less than 10% of our net development value. Again moving over to Slide 24, this provides a high level of cash flow for the first 6 months of the year. Strong cash generation of EUR 187 million mainly from the 3 revenue streams of Suburban units, land sales and forward fund deals that we've talked about. As previously mentioned, we had a significant investment in WIP of EUR 161 million putting the business in a strong position to close units in the second half of the year, but we're also opening new sites that will deliver for the first time in 2023. Our share buyback programs have progressed well in the period and we returned EUR 87 million to shareholders. We currently have about EUR 50 million remaining in our current program and at the conclusion of this program, we'll assess our ongoing capital requirements. I suppose at this point in time given the strong cash generation that we foresee for the rest of the year, there'll be excess cash and obviously with excess cash, so the shareholder returns are likely at that point. My final slide, Slide 25 summarizes the 3 main financial statements that we've just gone through, but one additional item that we've included is the financial guidance for the year. We are reiterating guidance that we gave earlier in the year of revenue of approximately EUR 630 million, operating profit of between EUR 73 million and EUR 78 million and our EPS range of EUR 0.075 to EUR 0.085. With that, I'd just like to thank everyone for joining this morning. I look forward to speaking to most of you over the coming week or so. And I'll pass you back to Stephen for his concluding remarks.

Thank you, Michael. To conclude, let's please turn to Page 27. As you can see, we continue to deliver on our significant ambitions across the 3 business segments underpinned by sustainability, supply chain integration and a rigorous and disciplined approach to deployment of capital. To summarize the main points Michael and I have discussed. Firstly, we continue to grow our revenue and profits in line with guidance and we are maintaining our 1,400 unit guidance for the suburban segment with additional revenue and profits in 2022 from our 4 transactions in our Urban segment. Secondly, we have successfully progressed our manufacturing capabilities and supply chain integration strategy with the focus for the business now being on integration and value maximization of these investments and focusing on incorporating our high density and standard house type into our manufacturing process. Lastly, economic and financial efficiency of our capital has further increased as a result of disciplined capital deployment and the monetization of our Urban assets and we are now expecting our land value to materially decrease below EUR 500 million by the year-end whilst maintaining a land bank of 4 to 5 years. Despite a challenging and volatile environment, the group has achieved improved profitability, cash flow and materially increased the efficiency of our balance sheet, which has resulted in significant returns for our shareholders. I would like to note that the progress on the ability to maintain and deliver on our original guidance is done through the hard work of the entire Glenveagh team and our industry partners as we continue to set foundations for becoming Ireland's leading more sustainable, large-scale homebuilder. I want to thank each and every one of them for their contribution. As a business, we have been moving at pace since 2017, setting up our infrastructure and scaling our business operations. We have been able to do this because of the commitment, enthusiasm and the professionalism of the entire team that we have put together. And with that, I'm happy to pass back to the moderator for any questions you may have.

[Operator Instructions] The first question comes from the line of Dudley Shanley from Goodbody.

I have 3 questions. Do you want me to go one by one or do you want me to get them all out at the start?

We'd take them all.

The first one is to do with I guess the demand backdrop and I noticed in the release you talked about a lot of stakeholders in the market whether it be the LDA, various AHPs, government approved First Homes or affordable purchase and things like that. Can you just talk just about the changing evolution of demand? I mean I'm assuming PRS is a little bit quieter at the moment, but just to get some feeling on that would be great. The second question is to do with gross margin. Obviously you're talking about further margin progression in the Suburban business as the year progresses. I just kind of picked up a hint that the language is a little bit softer than it was at the start of the year and I know it's cost inflation is higher and you've made a decision to support long-term supply chain partners. But I'm thinking more medium term, when will we see the benefits of the kind of investment in things like Harmony and Light Gauge Steel coming through in terms of gross margin? And then the final question is to do with I guess balance sheet efficiency has been an ongoing message and you've done a great job in terms of getting the Urban portfolio down and kind of really putting the business in position to drive returns forward. We're hearing smaller builders are pulling back from the market and there is an opportunity there now to grow a little bit faster and I know you're going to be materially better than the land target of EUR 500 million. How should we think about growth over the next year or 2?

Sure. I should have asked for one by one I think. I think starting with the backdrop in the demand. Obviously we've grown the order book substantially over 1,800 units. We've seen a really robust demand out there and actually what we've been presently surprised by is the cancellation rate is actually lower than it was 12 months ago. So that's really positive. So on the private demand side from the consumer, they're in a really robust position. You've obviously got the government initiatives of Help-to-Buy, which is a positive; but you've obviously got the First Home scheme now, which has just been activated. I would also say that the supply is probably more constrained than expected because there simply isn't more houses being built, you have a lesser pool of houses out there and I suppose for us the real benefit is that's our largest segment. If you look at the overall portfolio today, we're very much aligned with that supply of suburban products so we feel in a pretty good position. On the other supply -- on the other demand side, yes, there's obviously the LDA with Project Tosaigh, which is operational. It's expected I think the overall supply of that this year to come in at about 1,000 units in the overall market is the expected. We're obviously talking to the LDA and we may look at supply and support of the product into this year and next year. But you also have the consistent demand then of local authorities as well as approved housing bodies. So quite -- we would always say something between 25% and 30% is probably on the other side of the business from that demand. Obviously with housing targets for government likely to be behind where we expect, there'd be probably further demand into the back end of the year and early next year. On the gross margin, obviously it's been a very much volatile inflationary market out there. As we have called out, it's predominantly on the commodity side material base. We kind of had hoped as we came through the summer that would settle down. It's unlikely now due to the energy crisis in Europe. And I suppose the biggest challenge we are going to face is the supply constraints because you have to remember, a lot of the energy is consumed in the production of the product and if the gas availability is simply not going to be there, that's going to cause the constraint. So I think that's the challenge we're going to face to the second half of the year and obviously inflation has been really volatile. The investments we're making in the vertical integration and the manufacturing, the benefits of that we're seeing some, but we're not really seeing it at full run rate yet and there's a number of dynamics. First of all, it's not at scale. We're investing to get to 3,000 units. So you don't see those investments at the numbers we're producing at. It's when you get them to real big volumes, that's where we really see the progression of that. Secondly and I suppose the biggest thing is we started a process in the business called standardization in 2018. Due to the constraints in the planning system, it has taken a long time to get that through. With that vertical integration with the manufacturing and the standardization home together, that's really when you see the benefits in '23 and '24. I can let Michael comment on where he sees margin progression. On the balance sheet and I suppose the land where we're seeing the dynamics out there is. For us, it's all about making our land turning it faster. We're not obsessed with gross margin. We're more obsessed with that return on capital employed or return on equity. That's the main focus for us. So the key principle for us is the land we're buying that we can get it operational as quickly as possible. That's allowing us, I suppose when you see our private reservation rate and you see the volumes we're pushing out per site, allows us to run our sites faster and we think this model will accelerate into the future. So it's all about turning that capital more and more. We're quite comfortable where we've positioned the land bank in a monetary number but as an overall number and we feel there's probably a little bit more we can do there. So the landing place is somewhere between EUR 400 million and EUR 450 million we believe when we can get to full run rate. The positive I would say in the land market to the future is the governments are definitely going to implement policies to force more land into the system and there's a number of tax policy documents that are on the go at the moment that will incentivize land to be delivered. And I suppose for us, we've always talked about ourselves as a manufacturing business that can produce houses. Take land and turn it into a product as quickly as possible with all the vertical integration that we've done is the key component and the key strategy for the business.

And just to round out on that margin point, Dudley. I suppose we have softened the language. But in my notes, we still talk again to approximately 18%. I think with all the uncertainty that's out there at the moment, we have a bit of road to travel between now and the year-end and into early next year in terms of cost price inflation. So our expectation is still hitting all our guidance targets and we've just -- I suppose just in the current environment, we thought it was sensible just to maybe soften the language and not be as bullish of in excess of 18% that we would have been in March. But as I said, we are reiterating all our profit numbers for this year.

Just, Dudley, one thing I left out was the PRS, I didn't cover. Obviously the business has made substantial progress in the first half of the year. Probably was the focus of the business to deliver on a lot of the Urban assets just with the environment that we saw out there and I suppose for us, we're in a really nice position. We've done our deals. We've monetized as much as possible. We can stand back now and see what opportunities might be down the track. But for the moment, we're not investing in Urban assets till we see how the horizon looks into the future.

The next question comes from the line of Jony Coubrough from Numis.

3 for me, please. Firstly on overheads, just keen to hear whether the run rate from the overheads in H1 is enough to be supportive of completions in H2 or whether we'd expect further investment there in H2? Secondly, thinking about the H1/H2 phasing, I'd be grateful to hear your thoughts on the ability to transfer the supply chain from the Urban side to the Suburban side in H2 given that H1 was very much weighted towards Urban and H2 will be weighted towards Suburban. And then thirdly, you've mentioned the ongoing buyback and the potential for that to continue post the current ongoing buyback. I'd be keen to hear your thoughts on preference to doing further capital returns through a buyback as opposed to a special with where the share price is now trading at premium to NAV.

Yes. I might just box off the overhead piece and let Stephen talk certainly about the weighting. So overhead and again I've called it out. Full year expectation: EUR 33 million central costs, EUR 3 million depreciation for an overall number of EUR 36 million. So that's kind of exactly where we thought we would be when we talked to the market in March I suppose looking out and we've been saying this for I suppose a couple of years. We've invested early in our overhead and central costs. Medium-term target is to get that overhead to around 4% of revenue. So little incremental cost to invest over the next couple of years in central costs and certainly nothing like growing at the same rate as revenue. So that's kind of short-term and medium-term outlook for overhead.

Yes. And I suppose obviously getting the Urban assets, we have a number of sites open up and operational on Citywest, Castleknock, Black Rock. The teams are in place. Obviously those programs are somewhere between an 18- and 24-month period so we're not likely to be moving teams. We've obviously set them up, but we won't be moving those teams or looking at moving any of those teams for probably another 12-month period. With obviously all our Suburban sites fully operational, we're in a pretty good place there and obviously new sites are opening up or adding to that as we're ongoing. I suppose the manufacturing lends itself to really ramping that up and as more standardized product, that really helps the whole process. Just I suppose capital allocation, we've been crystal clear about this. The 3 priorities first for the business is have the right amount of land, have the work-in-progress and then obviously as we add to the vertical integration. If there's capital available after all of those 3 boxes are ticked, we'll return it to shareholders. I think you only have to look at kind of evidence from what we've done. We've obviously committed to EUR 260 million in buyback programs over the last 18 months. Our preferred avenue and we'll remain in our preferred avenue is to consistently return to buybacks until we as a management and as a Board feel that doesn't make sense. It also allows us the flexibility for what opportunities might be down the road not to commit to a dividend policy. It gives the business as much flexibility to either capture any potential opportunity or it gives us the flexibility to work with the business. So that's the preferred model for the moment.

Your next question comes from the line of Colin Sheridan from Davy.

Congratulations on the results. I think 3 left for me and some of them are more follow-ups on earlier questions. Just coming back to the balance sheet, I mean it's obviously in an exceptionally strong position at this point in time and you've given an indication of maybe where land could go to. I wonder if overall it makes you more comfortable with your ROE target or does that necessarily imply that they become easier to hit in the medium term? And then I suppose somewhat related on the PRS side, clearly a very astute move over the last couple of years to reduce the exposure so considerably to that sector. I wonder we talk about having excess capital as the year progresses. Maybe that's a sector that might see some weakness in the short term. What do you think it would take for Glenveagh to really get back into that sector meaningfully? I mean particularly from the perspective of say the fact that it would probably mean more expensive land on a per plot basis relative to the trend that we've seen in the company to-date. And then the third one just on the planning system. You've laid out that you're quite well set for 2023 already. I wonder more generally held, do you see the planning system having progressed up until now this year with the LRD system, whether that has helped in any way? And ultimately how confident you are that, that remaining sort of 20% of units in 2023 can be maintained whether there's flexibility from different sites or whether there's really a few sites that need to be hit in order to reach that target?

On the ROE, and I'll let Michael comment on it as well, I suppose I wouldn't say it's an easy target. But I think what you can see from a business that we're really focused on is I think it's that disciplined approach and that strategic how we invest our capital, where we make the best return for our shareholders ultimately and that's really the focus for the business. Our medium-term target of 15% by 2024. Obviously if you keep making the balance sheet efficient and you keep growing the profits, the 2 should align and I suppose the journey is being made easier obviously by the monetization of the Urban assets. On the general view of PRS and I suppose it has been a concentration I suppose. When we turn the year and I suppose it has been the focus from about mid-2021 that we just looked at the PRS space and we looked at the dynamics that play in inflationary environment. Yields were probably as compressed as they could be at 0 interest rates. That yield could spread and I suppose that was a concern. The inflation cost, particularly the base cost of apartments is much more expensive than housing because the percentage of the delivery is much greater in construction so it can move to greater upside and I suppose that was a risk that we want to look. Our view is that there's obviously a number of things that are ongoing in the background from planning policy to development plans and for us, we're just going to see how that all plays out. But there is going to be opportunities. We need private rental accommodation in the state. You've obviously got the exodus of mom-and-pop landlords and they need to be replaced with someone. How that evolves for us? We think that the growing space that may increase over the coming years will potentially be cost-rental. The government has made a commitment to 18,000 units. We think that's very light. It probably needs to be doubled and they're going to put their [indiscernible]. That may be a space where we play in medium term. In the long term, we look at opportunities where we can invest capital that makes the right economic sense for us. So we'll very much keep it under review. But I do think there will be opportunities where maybe we don't have to pay for the site, but we could partner with people and that reduces the amount of capital that we have on those sites. And obviously because we've worked with so many institutions now, we have a really good track record. Institutions like working with us because of our delivery capability. So there may be opportunities to partner in a different dynamic and we'll keep that under review. On the planning system overall, we're in a good place. Obviously LRD is now up and running and this is replacing the SHD process. We've seen our first team come through, which was one of the fastest in the country. So we're seeing positive effects from that. I suppose my frustration with the planning system overall is policy. I suppose if I look at where we are at this moment in time, you have about 75,000 units in the planning system through the other side that's excluding JRs and judicial reviews. Out of that 75,000, less than 15,000 are own door product and 60,000 is apartments. And I suppose the challenge for the sector is who and who's capable of delivering those apartments and the capital to deliver those apartments versus the own door products where the government initiatives are. And I suppose we really think the planning policy needs to be examined because if we are to meet the Housing for All targets, the quickest and best way to do it is deliver more own door products or a proper balance of own door products so a balance between apartments and housing. The weighting at the moment is more towards apartments than housing and this just needs reforming. What we are I suppose going to see in the third quarter -- at the end of the third quarter into the early fourth quarter is obviously the Attorney General's review on the planning process. This should eliminate a lot of roadblocks in the sense of challenges and appeals and the slowdown in the planning system. We just need to see how that pans out into the future. But from a planning perspective, we're in a good position. We would like to see further reforms because this will speed up delivery for the entire sector.

We currently have no questions on the line. [Operator Instructions] We currently have no more questions on the line.

Thank you, everyone, for joining. We look forward to seeing you over the coming days and weeks. And again apologies for the confusion earlier on with the presentation not being uploaded. I hope you were able to review. Look forward to speaking to you over the coming periods. Thank you.

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