Dive Brief:

• Home-building company PulteGroup announced its long-time CFO Bob O’Shaughnessy will be retiring from his position effective in 2025, according to a Monday securities filing. Jim Ossowski, the company’s SVP of finance, has been chosen as O’Shaughnessy’s successor.
• O’Shaughnessy, who has served as the home-building firm’s finance chief for 11 years, will remain as PulteGroup’s top finance chief until Feb. 7, and will stay on with the company as an executive vice president until the end of that year, according to the filing. Ossowski, also a long-time Pulte alum, will assume his new role as CFO also as of Feb. 7.
• The CFO transition announcement comes as Pulte looks to weather headwinds in the housing market, with home-building hitting a four-year low in June, CFO Dive previously reported.

Dive Insight:

A 22-year alum of the Atlanta, Georgia-based home-building company, Ossowski was promoted to his most recent role of SVP, finance in 2017, according to his LinkedIn profile. His previous roles for PulteGroup include VP, finance and corporate controller, VP of finance, U.S. homebuilding operations and director, corporate audit. Prior to joining PulteGroup, he served an 11-year span at accounting firm Arthur Andersen.

Ossowski, 56, will receive an annual base salary of $650,000 in association with his appointment as CFO, a salary which will be effective Jan. 1, 2025, according to the company filing. As CFO, his target annual bonus will be $1.3 million, while his target long-term incentive award will be $1.8 million, according to the filing.

Ossowski will prepare to take on the CFO seat as the company looks to keep its forward momentum following a positive first quarter, even as high interest rates continue to curb the housing market. Housing starts in May hit 1.28 million, 19.3% below those seen in May 2023, slowed by the Federal Reserve’s decision to keep rates higher-for-longer, according to data from the Commerce Department.

Furthermore, while overall housing starts increased by 3% in June to 1.35 million units, elevated interest rates for mortgages held back single-family production, according to July data from the National Association of Home Builders.

With more confidence inflation is falling to its 2% target, Fed Chair Jerome Powell indicated last month that the central bank would move to cut rates before they reach 2%, CFO Dive previously reported. An “improving interest rate environment will help buyers as well as builders and developers who are contending with tight lending conditions and high interest rates,” NAHB Chief Economist Robert Dietz said in a statement included in the July report.

With home inventory at a “relatively low” 4.4-month supply, builders are prepping to boost production in the next few months according to NAHB survey data, Dietz said.

While home-building may have sagged in recent months, the country is still suffering from “a long-term structural issue resulting from a decade of under-building that has the country short approximately 4 million housing units,” Ryan Marshall, CEO of PulteGroup said during the company’s first quarter earnings call in April.

That shortage, combined with low inventory of existing homes with homeowners still locked into low-interest mortgage rates, makes this “a great operating environment” for a homebuilder as “we are supplying a product that a lot of people need and want,” Marshall said according to a transcript on Seeking Alpha.

For its first quarter ended March 31, PulteGroup reported net income of $663 million, as well as record home sale revenues for the first quarter of $3.8 billion, according to its earnings release. Pulte is set to report earnings for its second quarter on Tuesday.

The company did not immediately respond to requests for comment.