Persimmon's half-year revenues rise

2nd Jul 2013 07:02

UK housebuilder Persimmon said revenues rose in the first half as it completed seven per cent more homes than the previous year at a higher average selling price.Total revenues for the for the first six months of the year came to £900m, up 12% on last year's £806.7m, after finishing 5,022 new homes.The group achieved an average selling price of £179,200, compared to £171,206 last year, driven by an increase in the proportion of larger family housing in the sales mix.The company said the UK government's Help to Buy scheme, introduced in April, helped boost the number of homebuyers and bring momentum to sales over spring. Persimmon has secured 1,124 Help to Buy reservations since it was launched. "We are encouraged by the gradual increase in the number of major mortgage lenders supporting this government initiative and anticipate that all the major lenders will be providing Help to Buy related mortgage products over the coming weeks," the firm said in a statement. "This will present a wider choice to customers and will help to support further increases in new home sales."At June 30th, the value of our forward sales was £920m, 19% ahead of the prior year. Private sale forward revenue was 24% ahead of last year while the value of housing association forward sales increased by 10%.During the period, the company successfully opened 90 sites and was operating from 385 active sites. Persimmon has plans to open a further 85 new sites in the second half of the year and expects the active outlet network to remain stable at 385 sites. The company expects underlying operating margin to have increased to 15% in the first half of this year, up 280 basis points on a year earlier. The group has acquired 7,300 new plots and invested £240 m in its land bank which amounts to 70,500 consented plots at June 30th. "We plan to bring these new sites through into development as quickly as possible," the business said.The growth of the business in terms of revenue and profitability delivered £72m of free cash net inflow before capital returns in the first half, compared to £112m last year. Cash holdings totalled £45m, down from £135m in 2012."We have now entered the slower summer weeks for the UK housing market and continue to experience stable conditions," Persimmon added. "In the context of the wider economic challenges consumer confidence remains fragile. However, we remain focused on the delivery of the planned further growth of Persimmon and the successful execution of our long term strategy."RD