Taylor Wimpey starts to look forward again

5th Aug 2009 07:43

Housebuilder Taylor Wimpey posted another thumping loss in the half year to June after more huge land bank write-offs, but orders rose with 'encouraging' signs of stability in both the UK and US.Losses in the six months to June totalled £604m, down from £1.55bn, on revenues of £1.13bn against £1.56bn. Stripping out land write-downs, losses were £68.9m against £0.3m.Analysts though were surprised by the scale of the £527m land bank provisions, though chief executive Peter Redfern told reporters that may be most of the pain taken.'Our land is conservatively valued at this point in the cycle and we do not expect further writedowns unless there is a significant shift in any of our main markets, he said. Taylor had already written down its property bank by £1bn in 2008.'Although we will continue to focus on cash generation, our primary objective has now returned to creating value from existing and future sites,' Redfern added.Orders, though are up sharply. UK order books at 24 July are up 67% since the full year at £938m and cancellation rates have fallen from 46% in the second half of 2008 to 19% for the first half of 2009. Early summer selling season has been solid and visitor levels remain encouraging, Taylor added.In North America orders are currently up 23% since the full year at $1bn. Cancellation rates are 18% (H1 2008: 20%) with more stable conditions in most regional markets'In the first half of 2009, trading conditions improved significantly. We saw stable conditions in the UK, achieving increased sales rates and stable pricing. In North America, after a weak first quarter, we saw an improvement in the second quarter,' it added.