Henry Boot has reported a strong operational performance driven by land disposals and property development completions
Henry Boot’s half-year report revealed an 11.9% increase in revenue, up from £129.0m in June 2021 to £144.4m. The strong operational performance has been driven by land disposals and property development completions.
Due to a solid performance of residential land sales and industrial development activity, profit before tax also grew 68.0% to £38.8m – up from £23.1m in June 2021.
Land promotion figures revealed:
- 3,447 plots sold (June 2021: 2,288)
- Land bank maintained at 92,981 plots (December 2021: 92,677)
- 9,615 (December 2021: 12,865) plots with planning permission, all held at cost, following disposals and continued delays in the planning system, with c.30% of the 11,694 plots currently awaiting determination timetabled for a decision in H2
Property investment & development figures showed:
- Committed developments of £262m, with 73% pre-sold or pre-let and 97% of the development costs fixed
- 1m sq ft of industrial & logistics development underway (97% pre-sold or pre-let)
- £1.5bn development pipeline (HB share: £1.2bn), 68% focused on industrial & logistics
- Investment portfolio value increased to £134m (including JVs) (December 2021: £126m), delivering a total property return of 4.6% over the period
- Stonebridge Homes secured 96% of its annual sales target of 200 units for 2022, with a total owned and controlled land bank at 1,164 plots (December 2021: 1,119).
Its construction segment also achieved a turnover growth of 21.6% to £66.5m, up from £54.7m in June 2021.
Best ever first half years with rising profits for Henry Boot
Tim Roberts, chief executive officer, Henry Boot, commented: “We have had one of our best ever first half years with materially rising profits and good progress achieved against our strategic targets.
“Taking advantage of our three key markets we have made significant sales whilst being selective on purchases. This has allowed us to keep gearing low, despite continued investment in our high-quality committed development programme and our growing housebuilder, and at the same time increase our interim dividend by 10%.
“We have worked hard to do our best to adjust to supply restrictions, inflation and an increasingly complex planning system. This work, together with our committed team of people and the relatively high level of forward sales for 2023, see us well placed as we enter what seems yet another period of economic uncertainty.”
