Harworth Group’s net asset value rose slightly last year, despite having “everything possible thrown at us” during the pandemic.
The London-listed developer’s NAV rose to £488.7m in 2020, up from £463.8m the previous year, after progress on its ongoing developments drove up valuations.
It also brought in £59.7m from the disposal of 92.7 acres of serviced land, comprising 873 residential plots, 48,640 sq ft of commercial space, and land for an energy-from-waste facility.
The Rotherham-based company has planning consent for a further 1.1m sq ft of industrial space and 200 residential plots, and it is also waiting to hear back on proposals for more than 1.3m sq ft of office space and over 2,500 residential plots.
Chair Alistair Lyons said that newly installed chief executive Lynda Shillaw, who joined the firm in November, would carry out a strategic review of the business later this year and into early 2022. However, he added, this is expected to be “evolution not revolution”.
Harworth made a pretax profit of £33.4m, up slightly from £30.3m the year before, while net debt was roughly stable at £71.2m.
Shillaw described the results as “testimony to a strong and consistent business”.
“We’re delivering into two sectors in the market where there’s a structural under supply – logistics and industrial and residential,” she told EG. “After a hiccup in the middle of the year with a lot of market uncertainty, the business has bounced back really well.”
Chief financial officer Kitty Patmore said the company’s land “is now the largest that it ever has been – over 30,000 housing plots and over 27m sq ft of commercial space, with a good chunk of financial headroom to move that forward.”
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