Harworth to abandon residential market as it fends off Peel Group bid

The property developer is fighting off a takeover attempt by Peel Group

Regeneration specialist Harworth is exiting the residential sector as it attempts to streamline its business.

The developer says it will refocus on strategic land, enabling works and selective development to maximise returns. It comes as Harworth continues to fight off a takeover attempt by Peel Group, which last month offered nearly £583m for the Rotherham-based group.

Harworth says the offer comes at a 19.7% discount to its EPRA NDV of £697.7m as at the end of June this year. Bosses set out in detail why the Peel approach “does not fully capture the additional embedded value within the group”. They pointed to a substantial hyperscale data centre pipeline and its more than 3.8million sqft of “construction-ready” industrial and logistics land, among other points.

It called the offer “highly opportunistic” to take advantage of a “dislocation” between its share price and the value of its underlying assets.

The comments come as Harworth published half year results for the six months to the end of June in which EPRA NDV was £697.7m, compared with £725m in the same period last year. It also saw a £16.9m fall in the value of its residential portfolio over the period, compared with a £14.7m decrease in the first half of last year.

Lynda Shillaw, chief executive of Harworth, said: “Harworth has made good operational and strategic progress during the first half of 2026 and into the second, against a challenging macroeconomic backdrop that has weighed on valuations, particularly in residential. Since 2021 we have successfully repositioned our land and development portfolio, shifting the weighting to 71% industrial & logistics and developing a significant powered land bank, in turn positioning the business to deliver strong returns to shareholders into the medium term.

“Our 34.8m sqft land and development pipeline, which includes 0.8GW of powered land, would be difficult to replicate today given its scale, together with the advanced planning and power supply status, and strategic locations, of many of its sites. Within this pipeline, we are seeing strong occupier demand across our industrial & logistics products, driven by structural growth trends.

“This includes the first pre-let at our 1.1m sqft Chatterley Park site in Staffordshire, to an advanced manufacturing occupier. Our largest-ever substantially construction-ready land bank of 3.8m sqft positions us to further capture this momentum through a combination of pre-lets, land sales and small to mid-box speculative builds.”

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