Taylor Wimpey fails in £500m refinancing bid

Taylor Wimpey has so far failed in a bid ro raise £500m of extra financing through an emergency share issue. 

The housebuilder has also confirmed it will close a third of its 39 offices, meaning the loss of 900 jobs.

Taylor Wimpey had announced on Monday that it was planning to raise funds to bolster its finances. But "current market conditions" meant it had not yet been able to find a "satisfactory" deal.

The housebuilder added it expected the UK housing market to remain weak thoughout the rest of the year and did not anticipate any short-term recovery. 

Taylor Wimpey has been hard hit by the decline in house sales. It said that reservations of new houses were 45% lower in the 26 weeks to 29 June than they had been the year before.

A further 29% of orders in the period were cancelled, compared with 19% a year previously.

The firm's US business is also struggling with sales 13% lower than a year ago and its order book 25% smaller.

In another development, Taylor Wimpey's finance director Peter Johnson will stand down at the end of 2008.