Good morning, everyone. Thank you for joining the Foxton's 2026 half-year results presentation. I'm joined by Chris Huff, Group CFO, and we will answer any questions at the end of the call. This morning, I will take you through some of the highlights for 2025 and provide an update on the London property market and further detail on the impact of the Renters' Rights Act. Chris will then talk you through the financials and the performance of each of our businesses in more detail. finally i will outline the operational progress that we've delivered in the half before finishing with the outlook for the rest of the year on slide five we've outlined the key takeaways from this results presentation to put these results into context the market backdrop was highly challenging in the first half the sales market was subdued as domestic political uncertainty and conflict in the middle east have led to higher borrowing costs and weaker consumer confidence At the same time, the usually highly stable lettings market saw some short-term volatility from the introduction of the Renters' Rights Act, or RRA. The RRA is the most significant piece of legislation in a generation and has overhauled key elements of the lettings market, as we outlined in March. Its implementation created a period of adjustment in the market, resulting in higher levels of tenant-led terminations through May and June. Against that backdrop, these results demonstrate the resilience of our business model. Over the last four years, we have deliberately repositioned the business towards lettings through organic and acquisition-led growth initiatives. And that strategy continued to prove its value in the first half. Today, 69% of group revenue comes from non-cyclical and reoccurring activities, and that compares to 65% in the prior year. This reflects the progress that we've made in growing our lettings portfolio, which now stands at 32,000 tenancies. It also means that Foxons is far less exposed to the sales market cycles than it previously was. And this can be seen in group revenues remaining highly resilient, only declining 3% despite the highly challenging market backdrop. In nettings, the core focus of our business, we continue to make progress against our organic growth strategy. Prior to the impact of higher earlier terminations, the underlying business delivered revenue growth. The core business remains stable and we're making good progress in capturing the growth opportunities that the RRA creates, with growth in both built events and the cross-sell of property management. We also continue to execute our acquisition strategy. Acquisitions in new markets in Milton Keynes and Birmingham were completed earlier in the half, creating strong platforms in high value markets that complement our London base. We're already seeing growth from aligning these businesses with the Foxton's operating platform and have built a strong pipeline of further bolt-on opportunities in these markets across our wider network. Cross-sell is an important part of our growth strategy. As we highlighted at our Capital Markets Day last year, high margin ancillary products and services improved both profitability and customer lifetime value, while strengthening our ability to support customers through their property lifecycle. And in the half, we delivered growth across each of the three businesses. Finally, we responded proactively to market conditions. During the first half, we delivered £4.5 million of cost savings, completed a detailed operational review of the sales business and are implementing changes at pace. We also increased our RCF capacity to £50 million to support our growth strategy, and Chris will provide more detail in his section. These actions support profitability today whilst ensuring that the business remains well positioned for future growth. Turning now to slide seven and an update on the London lettings market. The market remained resilient despite the implementation of the Renters' Rights Act. Fundamentally, the structural imbalance between supply and demand remains across our markets and continues to underpin our focus on lettings. In H1, tenant demand remained very strong. And as you can see from the charts, we saw an average of 17 renters per property during the period, up 4% year on year. And that demand means that properties are letting at the fastest pace that we've seen in four years. This demand means that rental values remain elevated and broadly stable. Affordability constraints are naturally limiting further short term price growth, but the market remains highly attractive from a landlord perspective. In fact, today we're seeing some of the highest yields available to landlords in recent years, and actually that I've seen in my nearly 20 year career in London property. So in summary, the underlying fundamentals remain unchanged. Demand for rental accommodation continues to exceed supply as London remains one of the most attractive places in the world to live and work. And offsetting this, housing delivery remains constrained. Taken together, these factors continue to support a positive long-term outlook for the sector. On this slide, I will take you through an update on the Renters' Rights Act, including what we're seeing on the short-term and longer-term expectations. As I mentioned earlier, the RRA is the biggest change to the industry in a generation and, in fact, since the Housing Act in 1988. Alongside a host of new regulations and compliance requirements, the removal of fixed tenancy lengths is the biggest change. Rental agreements are now an open-ended basis and tenants are able to leave at any point by giving two months notice. As expected, some tenants took advantage of this new ability. The impact was greatest following implementation in May and has reduced across June and July. The additional terminations fell broadly into three categories. First, tenants for whom the property was no longer the right fit. Secondly, students making use of the increased flexibility under the new rules. Lastly, there was the normal tenancy churn that would have previously occurred at the end of the fixed term. Importantly, the underlying picture was broadly stable, with the vast majority of tenants remaining in occupation. Against a portfolio of 32,000 tenancies, we experienced around 150 additional terminations per week. Whilst this is higher than historical levels, it remains a very small proportion of the overall portfolio and demonstrates that most tenants have continued to behave as expected. Importantly, these terminations are tenant-led and are not driven by landlords exiting the market. Our focus is on firmly getting these properties back to market and getting them let with new tenants for our landlords. Whilst there's been clearly some short-term volatility, we're also beginning to see the evidence of the opportunities we anticipated. The new regulations increased complexity, compliance requirements and therefore value of our professional advice. As a result, more landlords are choosing to work with professional agencies and we're already seeing this with an increased proportion of landlords taking up our management services. The bill to rent volumes also grew in the half as we deepen our relationships with institutional clients who are also seeking support from Foxton's in navigating the more complex operating environment. Looking ahead, our view remains unchanged. We continue to believe that RRA can create significant medium-term growth opportunities by continuing to increase demand for professional agency services, improving the take-off of ancillary products and property management as well as driving further industry consolidation. All of these trends play directly into Foxen's strengths in brand, scale, technology and operational capability. So while the market is currently working for a period of adjustments, we remain highly positive about the medium-term opportunity. Moving now to slide nine and an update on the sales market. The sales market was highly challenging in the first half. Macroeconomic weaknesses, long-running domestic political uncertainty and the conflict in the Middle East have fed through to higher borrowing costs and weaker consumer confidence and as expected these weighed on activity levels. Exchange volumes across London were down 13% compared with the prior year. It's also worth remembering that 2025 benefited from stamp duty related activity creating an even stronger a comparator. New home sales were more significantly impacted as both developers and buyers remained cautious in the prevailing market environment. Sales volumes in our commuter town businesses were less impacted than London, down 6% year over year, and highlighting the increased resilience our geographical diversification strategy is creating. Buyer activity continues to be held back. Whilst new sales agreed were improving through January and February, momentum faded following the conflict in the Middle East and is now impacting on borrowing costs. Domestic political uncertainty added further pressure and transaction volumes over the half were down 11%. Given that buyer demand leads transaction activity by several months, the current level of sales agreed suggests that a meaningful recovery in market volumes is unlikely in the near term. That said, demand has not disappeared and there is still high levels of pent up demand in the market. Where sellers are motivated and reflecting current market dynamics in their pricing strategies, we are still seeing strong levels of buyer interest and offers and ultimately achieving successful outcomes. I now pass it to Chris for a run through on the financials.
Thank you, Guy, and good morning, everyone. The group delivered resilience H1 revenue despite the well-trailed sales market headwinds and a period of adjustment in lettings following the introduction of the RRA on 1st of May. Financial highlights are set out on slide 11. Group revenue was 3% lower with lettings flat, sales down 13% and financial services up 20%. We delivered 8.9 million of adjusted operating profits or AOP down 29% on the prior year. The primary factors impacting this was lower sales revenue as a result of depressed market transactions and three million of tenant led revenue reversals due to early terminations post RRA, which has a high drop through to AOP. Cost control remains a major area of focus for us, with 4.5 million of annualised cost savings implemented in the period, of which 1.3 million benefited the H1 results. AOP margin decreased by 400 basis points to 10.6%. Adjusted EBITDA, which is defined on the same basis used to calculate the group's RCF covenants, reduced by 25% to 10.4 million. Statutory profit before tax was 4.4 million. Net free cash flow was 1.4 million, 2.2 million lower than the prior year and reflects lower sales revenue and an expected working capital outflow linked to the rollout of more competitive landlord billing terms. Finally, the interim dividend is unchanged at 0.24 pence per share. Turning now to slide 12, which provides an overview of the income statement. Group revenue decreased by 3% and continues to be underpinned by lettings revenue, which accounted for 65% of H1 revenue. Direct costs increased by £0.4 million, reflecting savings from right-sizing actions as part of the H1 cost reduction programme, offset by incremental direct costs from acquisitions and other inflationary pressures in areas such as national insurance and national living wage levels. Contribution was broadly flat at 64%. Overheads were £1.3 million higher, reflecting incremental acquisition overheads and inflationary increases, mitigated by back office and head office property cost saving initiatives. In total, £4.5 million of annualised savings were implemented in H1, of which £1.3 million benefited H1, with the full year expected to benefit by £3.5 million. The annualised cost savings comprised £3 million from the proactive cost reduction programme announced within our Q1 trading statements, and a further £1.5 million from the head office relocation in January 2026. Depreciation, amortisation of non-acquired intangibles and share-based payment charges were £0.4 million lower. Together, these movements delivered adjusted operating profits of £8.9 million. Statutory profit for tax was £5.8 million lower than the prior year, reflecting the lower adjusted operating profits and £1.8 million higher adjusted items. Adjusted items primarily reflect non-cash LTIP charges consistent with fall year 2025 reporting. non-cash branch impairment charges for a small number of underperforming branches which have been particularly impacted by sales headwinds and reorganisation costs linked to the cost saving measures. The cash impact of these adjust items is around 0.4 million in the half. Turning now to slide 13 and performance in lettings. Lettings revenue continues to be non-cyclical and reoccurring in nature and underpins the group's earnings, notwithstanding the short-term revenue volatility experienced following the introduction of the RRA, which I will speak to in a moment. Lettings revenue was flat at £54.7 million. Within this out-turn, we delivered organic and acquisitive growth. Specifically, we delivered underlying organic growth with 1.9 million higher like-flight lettings revenue, which reflects good growth in built-to-rents and the cross-sale of ancillary lettings products. We also increased penetration of property management by 10% versus the prior year, which will benefit the business in the future as revenues annulise. And we also benefited from 1.7 million of incremental revenue primarily from the acquisitions in Milton Keynes and Birmingham. However, this growth was offset by two revenue headwinds. Firstly, £3 million of reversals of previously recognised contractually due revenue following elevated tenant-led tenancy terminations after the eruption of the RRA. Secondly, £0.4 million lower interest earned on client monies due to lower Bank of England rates. Volumes were 6% higher whilst revenue per transaction was 6% lower, with both metrics reflecting expansion into higher volume but lower value markets via acquisition. Revenue per transaction in Foxen's core markets was flat at £8,700 per deal. contribution declined 0.6 million or 1% to 40.9 million and adjusted operating profit declined by 1.3 million reflecting the high profit drop through of the revenue reversals and a higher allocation of overhead costs to lettings following right sizing of the sales business moving to slide 14 and an update on the sales business. Sales revenue declined 3.4 million or 13 percent, reflecting 4 million lower like-for-like revenue and 0.6 million of incremental revenue from the 2026 acquisitions. On a like-for-like basis, revenue was 15 percent lower, reflecting 11 percent reduction in used home revenue, broadly in line with the market, a 46 percent reduction in new homes revenue, reflecting the more subdued new homes market. In total, volumes were 11 percent lower, and revenue per transaction was one percent lower. Excluding the impact of acquisitions in commuter markets, revenue per transaction in corn markets in London was four percent higher, reflecting 1% higher average sold prices and 33% growth in high margin cross-sell and ancillary revenues. Average market share across Foxon's London markets was robust at 4.9%. The adjusted operating loss in sales increased to 4.7 million as lower revenue was partly mitigated by the impact of savings from the proactive cost reduction programme. Improving the profitability of sales remains a key priority for us, and we are implementing operational changes which will better position the business for these lower volume markets. An area Guy will provide more detail on later in the presentation. Moving on to slide 15 and financial services. Revenue in financial services was 20% higher at 5.4 million, a strong performance against a weaker sales market environment. Specifically, volumes were 25% higher, reflecting a stronger refinance pipeline, higher estate agency cross-sell rates, and improved advisor capacity and productivity. Average transaction was down 4%, reflecting the change in product mix towards refinance activity, partly mitigated by 25% growth in ancillary revenues. Adjusted operating profit growth of 42% reflects strong revenue to profit conversion and incremental revenue delivered at a high margin due to disciplined overhead cost management. Finally, to slide 16 and cash flow. Net free cash flow generation was £1.4 million. The operating cash to net free cash flow bridge on the left hand side shows the key items of note. operating cash before working capital movements was 14.9 million 4.3 million pounds lower than the prior year due to lower adjusted operating profits and the cash impact of adjusted items there was a 4.5 million working capital outflow reflecting the ongoing transition to annual landlord billing across lettings portfolio in order to improve competitiveness and landlord retention We expect the portfolio to be fully transitioned to annual billing by 2027, with an estimated £10 million working capital investment across 2026 and 2027 attributable to the transition. The group paid £1.9 million of corporation tax and made £5.1 million of lease liability repayments in the period. 2 million of capex spend primarily relating to internally generated software development and branch and head office fit out costs looking at the opening to closing net cash bridge on the right hand side net debt at 30th of june 2026 was 28.4 million compared to 16.9 million at 31st of December. As shown in the table, this reflects the 1.4 million net free cash flow, 0.8 million of interest paid, 8.8 million of acquisition consideration and 3.2 million of total shareholder returns. In the year, we increased the capacity of the RCF to 50 million from 40 million in order to provide greater financial flexibility and to better support both organic and inorganic growth opportunities. The leverage covenant was also increased by 1.75 times to 2.25 times, again to provide more financial flexibility, while the interest cover ratio covenant remains at four times. The RCF matures in June 2028. At period end, the leverage ratio was 1.3 times and the net interest cover ratio was 18 times, both compliant with the RCF covenants. Following the RCF amendments, leverage guidance has been increased to up to 1.75 times, with a level dependent on the timing and quantum of future acquisitions. Finally, the interim dividend is unchanged at 0.24 pence per share. Payment will be made on 11th of September 2026 to shareholders on the register at close the business on the 7th of August 2026. The shares will be quoted ex-dividend on 6th of August 2026. I'll now pass over to Guy for the operational update and outlook for 2026.
On this side I will lay out the operation progress we've made in H1 and our focus for the rest of 2026 and beyond. In Lettings, we continue to make good progress with our organic growth strategy, executing against our formula of growing the portfolio and increasing the cross-sell of high margin services. Revenue before terminations grew, supported by strong growth in the cross-sell of higher margin services, including a 17% increase in ancillary products and a 10% increase in property management upsell. This performance reflects our focus on building deeper relationships with landlords, delivering best-in-class service and positioning Foxton's as a trusted partner. And we've brought that same approach to build to rent, delivering growth in both revenue and deal volumes. By combining expert advice with our operational capability to let large complex schemes at scale and pace, we've continued to strengthen our partnerships with institutional clients and win a greater share of their business. We've also continued to execute our acquisition strategy, completing two platform acquisitions in Milton Keynes and Birmingham. These markets offer attractive letting markets, long-term growth potential and consolidation opportunities. The businesses are already benefiting from the capabilities of the Foxon's operating platform, with both delivering early portfolio growth. Looking ahead, we have a strong pipeline of bolt-on opportunities across these markets, as well as the wider network. We continue to deliver our strategy of building scale in lettings. Turning now to sales. Following the appointment of James Stevenson as managing director towards the end of last year, we completed a detailed review of the business. The objective was simple, to ensure sales is structured for the market that we operate in today, reflecting market volumes, changing customer behaviour and expectations, and the opportunities created by technology. At the start of the year, we maintained headcounts on the expectation that market volumes would recover through 2026. We saw encouraging signs in January and February with buyer activity building throughout the early part of the year. However, by late February, our data increasingly pointed to that growth slowing and it became clear that a recovery in transaction volumes was unlikely in the near term. We therefore acted decisively, implementing right sizing actions that have delivered three million pounds of annual savings in the sales business. Alongside these actions, we've continued to modernise the operating model, simplifying processes, reshaping teams and making greater use of technology, data and AI. In many ways, this is about taking the operating model that built London's leading sales business over the last 25 years and evolving it for the next phase of the market. We've looked at every part of the sales operation, simplifying workflows, redesigning teams and making better use of technology, data and AI. Our focus is straightforward, improving productivity and improving the customer experience. Importantly, this is not simply a cost program. It's about improving the quality of the operating model and ensuring that the business is positioned appropriately for today's markets. As a result, we're building a stronger platform that can perform well in the current environment whilst remaining well positioned for benefit when transaction volumes recover. Moving now to financial services, we've delivered another strong period of operational progress. Operational upgrades have supported improved client retention and advisor improved productivity. And we've improved the cross-sell of ancillary products, primarily in protection. And despite the weaker sales market, we've maintained new purchase mortgage volumes, highlighting the impact of improved advisor productivity and deepened connectivity between financial services and Foxton's estate agency operations. Finally, underpinning all of this is our ongoing focus on productivity and costs. We delivered a total of £4.5 million of annual savings from our proactive cost reduction programmes, I mentioned, alongside our relocation of our HQ. We continue to invest in automation and data capabilities wherever we see a clear opportunity to improve customer experience, increase productivity and enhance profitability with a clear view on shareholder value delivery. And finally, to slide 20 and the outlook for the rest of 2026. In nettings, we expect market conditions to remain supportive, with strong tenant demand continuing to outstrip supply. Whilst terminations remain above historical levels, the financial impact has moderated significantly since May. And we expect conditions to continue to stabilise through the second half. More importantly, we're already seeing some of the opportunities the legislation creates. This includes growing demand for Foxton's property management services and built rent services as increasing numbers of landlords turn to Foxton's for advice, compliance expertise and professional management. As a result, we remain confident that RRA will create attractive growth opportunities for the business over the medium term. Turning to sales, buyer activity continues to be held back by weak consumer confidence and higher borrowing costs. Whilst market conditions remain challenging, we have taken decisive action to reposition the business for today's market and improve profitability. The operational plan underway is focused on improving productivity, enhancing the customer experience and ensuring the business is well positioned for future recovery. overall we expect 2026 adjusted operating profit to be in the range of 17 to 19 million with performance weighted towards the second half importantly group profitability continues to be underpinned by our substantial base of non-cyclical and recurrent lettings revenues giving us confidence in our ability to continue delivering against our growth strategy that includes the formal presentation thank you all for joining us today chris and i look forward to meeting with many in the coming weeks, and I'll now pass over to the operator for any questions you may have.
Operator
The question and answer session. Anyone who wishes to ask a question may press star and one on the telephone. You will hear a tone to confirm that you've entered the queue. If you wish to remove cell from the question queue, you may press star and two. Anyone who has a question may press star and one at this time. First question from the phone comes from Robert Lang with HD Retina. please go ahead.
Morning Guy and Chris two related questions on students first of all what is Foxton's exposure to the student market and secondly next year do you think landlords will be able to modify the leases with students to mitigate the impact of the RRA for example could they end the lease at the end of June rather than August to stop students skipping summer holiday. Thanks.
Morning. Thank you for joining us. Thank you for your question. Our exposure to students is very dependent upon locations, you'd imagine. If you go into some of the more traditional locations like South Kensington, we have a high proportion of those available units be let to students on an ongoing basis. And once you start to peel out zones two and three, then the exposure to students becomes much lower. If we take the entire portfolio across across London where circa 15% of our units are let entirely to a student when I say entirely that means that the entire household would be classed classified as students so that's that's where we're at into that and then in terms of your question around will there be modifications to the terms for students what we're already seeing is that the for this year for the previous student year where historically a student would have taken a tenancy from september last year through to september this year the students have taken the opportunity to be able to give notice in May and June to basically save a month or two of rent so that those units, instead of becoming available in September, then became available in June or July. Now, as you can imagine, the amount of competition for the student units is extremely high and in a vast number of cases, and in fact, I spent time in South Kensington only a couple of weeks looking at looking at exactly what's happening with this market there um the the frequency of the students uh was was exactly the same albeit that new students coming in for the start of term in september this year we're now pulling having to pull forward taking those units on a on an earlier date so we're basically in a shift of this one year where we had one tranche of students possibly were able to get away with, let's say, a 10-month student period, although this year then being very much taken back over by students who were taking the start of their tenancy term rather than starting in September, we're now taking that in June or July.
Great answer. Thank you, Guy.
Thanks for your question. Okay.
Operator
For any further questions, please press our N1 on your telephone. The next question from the phone comes from Gregory Poulton with Singer Capital Markets. Please go ahead.
Yeah, morning, guys. A few questions from me, please. So, firstly, can you talk a bit more about the M&A pipeline and what we're going to expect in terms of the case of M&A over the remainder of the financial year? Then, second, just in terms of organic growth in less things, have you seen any evidence of new landlords coming over as a result of the RRA or the primary benefit of that being mainly existing landlords seeking a managed service to get some colour on that and then likewise on organic growth mettings does that have tendency to make organic growth more challenging in terms of there's no natural end point for the landlord to review their agreement of what their existing met in there just thanks okay good morning thanks for your question i'll
take the uh the m&a pipeline as you know um continuing to invest in high quality businesses is actually core to what we believe continues to strengthen the foxton's operating model every pound of extra revenue that we can uh that we can either grow organically or buy um in as m&a helps us offset the business against the sales cycles. And I think, you know, if we go back historically more than five years ago, the profile of the business was entirely different to what it is today against these historically very, very low sales trends. So I think we're absolutely validated to continue to push that focus on M&A. We've got a great pipeline. And actually, as you know, we've made a number of acquisitions outside of London over the last couple of years. It's predominantly focusing at the moment on the opportunities that we've got in locations like Birmingham and Milton Keynes, because we've now initially bought the hub businesses for both of those locations, high quality market leading businesses with great, great, great rent rolls. And now we're really focused on adding in the extra businesses top of those initial units so that we can then take the extra synergies from those additional acquisitions. So we're very excited about that. And we've got a great pipeline of multiple opportunities in those locations where we really want to be able to secure, you know, almost an unassailable lead of market share dominance in those locations. So, yeah, excited about what that looks like in this year. And, you know, we're very confident that we can continue to spend the allotted amount of cash that we've got that we set out at the start of the year on those acquisitions. Hopefully that answers your first part of the question. Organic lettings, are we seeing new landlords coming into the market? This is a really interesting observation of the market only over the last couple of months as prices have come down to a point that, even looking back over the last five or six years, at some of the lowest levels that we've seen for capital values, for sales values, and we've seen continuing growth of lettings values, the net yields that we're starting to see for landlords is really starting to look very, very compelling. I spent time with our auctions team this week as well, and they've made several sales to landlords over the last couple of weeks where they're seeing an 8% or a 9% yield for new landlords buying new units coming into the market, which, you know, in my entire career, I've never seen anything like that historically. Looking at locations like Canary Wharf, we've seen very large numbers of, we've seen a much higher number of landlords coming in and buying units in those locations as well. So I'm quite encouraged by the opportunity that the market presents at the moment. And while we're seeing a small number of these new landlords coming in, We're also seeing, I think, the larger opportunity for Foxton's in the medium term is that we're seeing a larger proportion of landlords who have historically been self-managed converting over to our fully managed service. And that, of course, is a very important growth lever for us and something that we've demonstrated of really performing very well, even over the challenging six-month period of the readjustment over the lettings period of rental reform. um i'm really encouraged to see the the the large upsell into that new um into the renters uh property managed service so yeah i'm pleased to pleased to see all of this um and your last question yeah that that was just on um uh organic growth and that again
obviously there's no natural end point to a tenancy contract now for the landlord to sort of review their existing lettings agent agreement does that you know when does your sort of proactive conversation happen with those landlords in terms of trying to get them to come over to Foxton's you know previously you probably have seen the agreement coming towards an end and initiated contact with them but you know how do you think about that I really see it as the new rules within that being of a benefit, because what we are now able to do is have an annualised discussion over the rental values.
Already, we've had thousands of these conversations with our existing portfolio, and we've seen a very strong upside on rental price inflation being agreed by both tenant and landlord. And of course, We have the largest data set in London to be able to support any positioning on pricing with very, very little challenge from tenants in terms of those price increases. So we're pleased that we've got now this annual opportunity to renew pricing. And your point around the natural end to a tenancy, you know, on the two year or three year period. now for us we're actually we believe that the existing landlords are more likely to be stickier and locked in for a longer period of time and of course what we're using is this enormous data set that we've that we have on the entire market to give us propensity modeling into the whole of the opportunity to start conversations earlier with let's say competition landlords who might not be using foxton's um at dates using external data sources and our own data set internally at foxton's to be able to uh ascertain when we believe um tendencies may be coming to an end on a much more proactive basis um and i think again it leans into our our our advantages of having uh this enormous data set going back you know 20 years and being able to see consumer and tenant behavior within there. So, again, we're doing a lot of work around that and continuing to increase the quality of those conversations and the value-add service when we're speaking with landlords across the year.
That's great. Thanks very much, Guy.
Operator
Gentlemen, that was the last question from the phone. I hand now back over to you.
Two questions from Kate at Panmure. The first is, you've mentioned the impact of tenant led terminations has moderated since May. Can you give us any more colour on the run rate now versus the peak in May and June? And how confident are we that this stabilises further in H2? And the second question, which is, there's £4 million of annualised savings weighted into H2 alongside the sales operational review. Can you help us bridge how much of the H2 profit improvement is expected from cost-driven initiatives versus dependent on a pickup in sales market activity?
Thanks, Kate. I'll take both those. So in terms of 10-led terminations, in May going into June, certainly in June, I saw half the level of terminations, and in July, a similar level to June. So I expect, as we move forward into Q3, that starts to stabilise further. And indeed, some of those terminations are naturally higher in Q3 due to the seasonality and the rhythm of the sales markets. So as we've looked forward and put together expectations for the fall year, certainly we are expecting termination levels to exist, that exist in the new regulations, but we're certainly expecting those to moderate, and we've seen that from those initial May levels, which are also higher value, really showing there was a pent-up demand of certain tenants who wanted to exit a tendency. So that's moderating. In terms of the cost savings versus sales market conditions for the second half, in the sales market conditions, we have been relatively conservative on how we think that will play out. And indeed, when compared to historical markets, we do feel that we are in a similar market, certainly in our patches to what we were in 2023 so we've taken that view there's various lists which could make that that better but we feel we've positioned that in a relatively conservative position half year first half but the second year second half on cost savings so 1.3 million of benefits in the first half and that should increase to around 2.2 million in the second half uh giving us a total three and a half million benefits for uh 2026 and that will analyze to be greater in 2027 uh to be four
and a half million figure so hopefully that helps in terms of the weighted cost savings that's all the questions from the web okay that's all of the questions that we have and i'd just like you all to thank you all for joining us today um chris and i will be spending time meeting with many of you over the over the coming weeks and we continue to focus on um on improving the business at every opportunity. We know that H1 has been more challenging from a market view. I think we've taken some very strong, decisive actions over that period of time, particularly taking a large amount of cost out of the sales business as we looked forward. And we did that very decisively in March. The headwinds that we see in the Renters Reform are caused by the Renters Reform. We feel are temporary and we're working through those. And I think we've got a business that is fit still for a platform to take advantage of the opportunities for both sales and lettings, not just based on market recovery, but certainly continuing to grow lettings revenue wherever we can and continue to make the business considerably more resilient as a result of that. We look forward to meeting with you all very soon. We appreciate your time this morning.
