Bellway year pretax falls 29 percent
Housebuilder Bellway posted a 29 percent fall in pretax profit before exceptional items for the year to end-July, reflecting an "unprecedented" decline in the housing and mortgage markets.
Schroders 35% profit rise in 2007The group reported pretax profit of 165.7 million pounds, down from 234.8 million pounds, but ahead of expectations of 164.1 million pounds, according to a consensus of 10 analysts surveyed by Reuters. Turnover was 1.15 billion pounds, down from 1.35 billion pounds a year earlier.
It sold 6,556 homes, 14.2 percent fewer than the year before, at an average price of 169,700 pounds, down from 173,300 pounds.
Bellway, which builds a greater proportion of "affordable" schemes than its rivals, wrote down 130.9 million pounds of land stocks, equating to 8 percent of stocks at end-July, and cut it total dividend to 24.1 pence from 43.1 pence.
The company said it had never seen such a swift change in the housing market, and it had reacted by cutting 8 million pounds of costs through redundancy and rationalisation.
"The board has a clear strategy, aimed primarily at conserving cash and reducing the cost base, whilst maintaining the essential operational fabric and protecting shareholder value so that growth may commence when the market returns to more normal conditions," it said.
(Reporting by Paul Sandle; Editing by Paul Bolding)
|
|
