Quintain cuts Wembley jobs
Developer Quintain unveiled plans to slash costs yesterday, saying it was cutting jobs at its Wembley project and will pay no dividend for up to two years.
The property company, which is redeveloping the 85 acres surrounding the north London Wembley stadium into a large retail, leisure and residential scheme, said it was axing over half of its workforce there. Staff numbers will fall from 29 to 13.
In an attempt to ride out the pronounced slump in the property market, the firm unveiled a string of measures aimed at cutting costs. These include no dividend payment and reducing running costs by £4.1m at its other flagship scheme, the Greenwich Peninsula, where Quintain is developing 25,000 new homes near the O2 arena in London.
Chief executive Adrian Wyatt said the downturn in the market would continue well into next year.
“Conditions continue to prove challenging and are likely to remain so throughout the financial year. The board has adopted measures that will protect Quintain’s interests should a further significant decline occur and ensure the group will be positioned to exploit opportunities when markets recover,” Wyatt said in the firm’s first trading update of the financial year to the end of June.
Average UK commercial property prices have tumbled by around 20 per cent since the collapse of Britain’s real estate market last summer.
It said it had curtailed its development pipeline to only four sites in a bid to manage development risk and reduce costs, delaying the construction of more than 1,000 homes at Greenwich Peninsula, and at Wembley.