28th Nov 2019 11:25
(Alliance News) - Urban&Civic PLC said Thursday its annual profit fell on higher costs and a lower surplus on the revaluation of investment properties.
The property investor reported a pretax profit for the year to the end of September at GBP16.3 million, down 27% from GBP22.3 million the year before, due to a rise in administrative costs to GBP19.9 million from GBP18.8 million.
There was also a reduction into the surplus on the revaluation of investment properties to GBP5.8 million from GBP10.6 million the prior year.
Revenue meanwhile declined by 32% to GBP102.1 million from GBP150.4 million, as a result of trading property sales dropping by 66% to GBP30.3 million.
EPRA net asset value as at September 30 however rose to 360.3 pence per share, up 16% from 331.8p the prior year, as Urban&Civic's property portfolio value increased by 15% to GBP702.5 million from GBP609.1 million.
Urban&Civic declared a final dividend of 2.5 pence per share, bringing the total payout to 3.9p, up 11% from 3.5p the year before.
"The debate over large sites is over. Urban&Civic is now consistently outperforming static land markets as master developer of new prime environments in which housebuilders want to build and homeowners want to live," said Chief Executive Nigel Hugill.
"The keys are location and stakeholder alignment. Government policies are providing enough land supply for new market homes across most of the country but not South East England, where the company enjoys actual platform advantage. If we can only see a return to stable politics, the reasonable assumption is for the maturing profile of our projects and pipeline to enable further medium-term acceleration," Hugill added.
Shares in Urban&Civic - which is headquartered in London - were up 0.4% at 330.30 pence on Thursday.
By Dayo Laniyan; [email protected]
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