18th Mar 2016 07:19
LONDON (Alliance News) - The Berkeley Group Holdings PLC on Friday said it is continuing to see good underlying demand for its properties, with the London market remaining stable, and expects full-year results at the top end of its expectations.
The FTSE 100-listed housebuilder, which focuses almost exclusively on more-expensive developments in London and the South East of England, said trading conditions are positive in the housing market, in spite of "global macro uncertainty, including the impending UK European Referendum".
However, whilst Berkeley said it expects to deliver results for the year to end April at the top end of expectations, it said transaction levels at the upper end of the housing market have been affected by the "significant increase" in transaction taxes over the last 18 months, which it said "will have consequential effects on both social mobility and the supply of new homes".
The housebuilder said that, since its interim results in December, it has sold 62 properties priced over GBP2.0 million, in line with a year earlier, when the high-end UK market slowed in the run-up to the country's general election.
Berkeley said it remains on course to deliver GBP2.00 billion pretax profit in aggregate over the three years to 2018, and said GBP25.0 million of accelerated operating expenses coming from changes to its long term incentive plan will boost results for the current financial year.
Berkeley said it welcomed the UK government's intentions to address the supply-demand imbalance in the housing market, but was concerned that a number of policies were "complex and sometimes conflicting", adding there were "competing demand on limited and reducing public sector resources" and the UK has "one of the world's highest property taxation regimes".
By Hannah Boland; [email protected]; @Hannaheboland
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