27th Mar 2020 11:10
(Alliance News) - Berkeley Group Holdings PLC on Friday said it expects profits for financial 2020 to be lower due to disruption caused by the Covid-19 outbreak.
The FTSE 100-listed property developer said it expects profit for its financial year ending April 20 to be around GBP475 million. For comparison, in financial 2019 the company posted pretax profit of GBP775.2 million.
Berkeley said the outbreak led to its supply chain experiencing "increasingly considerable challenges", subsequently hurting deliveries of materials to sites. It added it is now in the process of implementing a temporary suspension of work on the affected developments.
The group said it is suspending future guidance but assured that its 99.32 pence dividend due at the end of March will be paid. It added that it intends to make its next shareholder returns by the end of September through a combination of share buy-backs and dividend payouts.
Berkeley said it currently has over GBP1.0 billion in net cash, after payment of the dividend in March. Including bank facilities, it has total potential liquidity of GBP1.75 billion.
The stock was trading 2.5% lower at 3,600.00 pence each on Friday morning in London.
By Ife Taiwo; [email protected]
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