Savills profit jumps after UK post-election bounce
Property advisor Savills reported a jump in full-year profit as a surge in UK business after the general election helped to offset Brexit uncertainty and disruption in Hong Kong.
The figures
Group revenue increased ten per cent to £1.93bn driven by a strong performance and profit before tax increase six per cent to £115.6m, compared to £109.4m the previous year.
Basic earnings per share were up eight per cent to 60.6p. The company announced that final ordinary and supplementary interim dividends were up three per cent to total 32p per share.
UK profits increased seven per cent to £81.9m, led by performance in Savills’ property management and consultancy businesses.
Savills’ UK residential unit grew revenue by six per cent, and the company reported continued growth in North America.
Savills Investment Management had a record year with revenue up 19 per cent and profit up 65 per cent to £18.1m.
Why it is interesting
Savills said its UK residential business performed well in challenging conditions for most of the year, but was buoyed by the Conservative general election victory.
Today the estate agent warned it expects to see a temporary delay in business due to the outbreak of coronavirus, but said it does not believe it will create an “absolute loss of business”.
Alongside its full-year results this morning Savills also announced that it has acquired US project management firm Macro Consultants to strengthen its North American real estate consultancy services.
What Savills said
Chief executive Mark Ridley said: “We continue to focus on growing our less transactional businesses, increasing our share of the global transactional markets and enhancing the resilience of the business.
“While we continue to monitor the impact of global uncertainties on investor and occupier demand for real estate, we have made a good start to 2020 with the first two months outperforming the same period last year on all measures.
“As a result of the dynamic situation in respect of Covid-19 it is difficult accurately to predict its impact on our business in 2020 as a whole, although we do expect a greater weighting of activity to the second half of the year.”