3rd Mar 2022 11:07
(Alliance News) - Taylor Wimpey PLC on Thursday reported a positive annual performance but fell short of meeting expectations for profit, which was still behind pre-pandemic levels.
Taylor Wimpey shares were up 2.1% to 147.45 pence each in London on Thursday.
The housebuilder reported pretax profit of GBP679.6 million in 2021, multiplied from GBP264.4 million in 2020. This fell short of the company compiled analyst consensus expectations, which had pretax profit from continued operations before exceptional items landing at GBP799 million. It was also below 2019's at GBP821.6 million.
This was on revenue which surged 53% to GBP4.28 billion, from GBP2.79 billion in 2020, and matched analyst consensus.
"Demand for our homes remains strong and we continued to drive significant margin improvement in 2021, as we optimise selling prices and maintain our strong focus on cost efficiency," Chief Executive Pete Redfern said.
A final dividend of 4.44 pence per share was declared, up from the sole and final dividend of 2020 which was 4.14p. This brought the total payout for the year to 8.58p per share, more than double 2020's payout of 4.14p.
Taylor said that, assuming the market remains broadly stable, it continues to expect to deliver low single digit year-on-year completions growth in 2022 and to make further progress towards its 21% to 22% operating margin target.
Build cost inflation is currently running at around 6% and, at this stage, the company expects sales price growth to continue to offset build cost inflation in 2022.
"With a continued focus on execution and efficiency, the board believes the group has strong momentum to make significant progress and deliver enhanced shareholder value in the years ahead," the company said.
By Greg Roxburgh; [email protected]
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