Fears of a slowdown in the residential market have failed to prevent Britain’s largest housebuilder reporting record first-half profits.
Barratt Developments said that its pre-tax profits had risen by nearly 7% to £342.7m, on revenue of close to £2bn, in the six months to December 31. It completed and sold 7,324 homes during the period, 2% up on the same time last year.
It also said that it would pay another special dividend of £175m in November 2019, matching the £175m special dividend that it plans to pay out in November this year.
According to the FT, Barratt will not seek to build any new homes in central London after being forced to cut prices on existing stock.
David Thomas, Barratt’s chief executive, on Wednesday said the builder had not bought any new London development sites since 2014 and confirmed it had no plans to buy any more for the foreseeable future once those were built out.
The Independent and the Guardian report that Barratt is relocating its construction block manufacturing operations from Germany to the UK to mitigate the possible impact of Brexit.
Although 90% of its large format blocks used in residential projects are sourced from the UK but the remainder are imported from abroad – potentially leaving it vulnerable to a shortfall in materials post-Brexit.
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