Property
McCarthy Stone: Realising a £200m opportunity
The Challenge
Profits down 50%
Share price at an all-time low
Increasing customer cancellations
New CEO
The UK’s leading developer of retirement homes was being heavily impacted by a property market slowdown. Prospective customers were struggling to sell their own homes, further compounding the already narrow access to suitable retirement communities in the UK. The new CEO wanted to offer customers new choice by launching new tenure options. He needed to show signs of a turnaround to investors within a few months.
The Results
25% of all new customer activity comes from the new propositions
10x in-year ROI achieved, filling the profit gap left by a fall in sales
Results from the first 9 months were repeated in the following 3 months
£200m
new tenure property portfolio announced
Speed was key. Arca Blanca would bring start-up thinking to a 40-year-old property company to co-create multi-tenure retirement housing options, test at a number of incubator sites and roll out further. For the client, this meant learning to become a landlord fast. For their customers, however, it would offer greater access to retirement properties for those struggling to sell their homes, enabling them to still move into suitable accommodation through renting.
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The project has been a real success. The joint team combined our own in-house capability with experienced change practitioners from Arca Blanca – ensuring that the project was anchored in McCarthy & Stone, but benefited from new insights and an innovative approach.
John Tonkiss, CEO, McCarthy Stone