Savills ramps up full-year profit, dividend hike

20th Mar 2014 07:51

- Annual pre-tax profit improves 35 per cent- Makes solid start to 2014- Total dividend hiked 19 per centSavills, the real estate services provider, delivered a 35% increase in annual pre-tax profit on Thursday. Pre-tax profit jumped 35% to £70.1m for the year ended December 31st while revenue rose to a record £904.8m from £806.4m a year before. Underlying profits were up 28%.Underlying basic earnings per share (EPS) rose 27% to 43.1p while pre-tax profit margin increased to 8.3% from 7.3% in 2012.Chief Executive Jeremy Helsby said: "These results demonstrate the strength of our position in the prime Residential and Commercial markets of the world's key cities and the benefit of the investment that we have made across the business to expand our service lines."Savills said it has made a solid start to 2014, performing in line with management expectations. In the UK, it expects solid demand for London property and a recovery in the regional markets although it cautioned that availability of commercial stock, in particular, is increasingly a challenge. Elsewhere in Asia, it expects reduced trading volumes in Hong Kong to persist for at least the first half of the year, with this mitigated, in part, by the strength of other regions across Asia. "We also expect to show a continued improvement in our businesses in Continental Europe and the US. Looking ahead, we are well positioned with a clear strategy for extending the depth and breadth of our services in the world's key markets," it expects.Savills has offered a total dividend for the year of 19p per share, up from 16p a year earlier.CJ