6th Mar 2014 13:20
LONDON (Alliance News) - Residential property services business LSL Property Services Thursday posted an increase in profit and revenue for the full-year, reflecting a strong performance across the business as the property market showed signs of picking up.
The company, which incorporates both an estate agency and surveying business, posted pretax profit of GBP17.1 million for 2013, up from GBP6.7 million, as revenue rose 6% to GBP258.6 million from GBP243.8 million a year earlier.
The estate agency division delivered a strong performance, particularly in the second-half of the year, with residential sales income up 11% and financial services income up 13%.
LSL said its estate agency business Marsh & Parson made, "good progress in a challenging central market where stock levels remained flat all year." Total revenue for Marsh & Parsons increased 10% to GBP29.9 million, from GBP27.3 million, with residential sales growth of 14% and lettings growth 6%.
Financial services income delivered through LSL's estate agency divisions branches and financial services intermediary networks increased by 13% to GBP35.8 million, from GBP31.8 million.
LSL said its surveying division experienced a difficult first quarter when transaction volumes fell by 11%, however the surveying market showed improvement after April but this was unable to stop the division's revenue dipping to GBP60.4 million from GBP62.2 million, said the company.
During the period, the company increased its stake in popular property website Zoopla to 4.9% from 4.79% buy acquiring a further 48,178 shares at GBP17.50 per share.
Overall LSL's net assets were valued at GBP99.3 million compared with GBP76.1 million in 2012, including a GBP22.5m valuation uplift following a review of the fair value of the investment in Zoopla.
Financially, the company said its net bank debt at the period-end stood at GBP26.3 million down slightly from GBP26.6 million.
The company declared a final dividend of 7.2 pence per share, up from 6.4 pence, making a full-year dividend of 10.5 pence or 9.5 pence.
The stock was trading at 474.00 pence Thursday morning, up 3.00 pence or 0.64%.
By Anthony Tshibangu; [email protected]; @AnthonyAllNews
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