Countrywide half yearly results
Countrywide PLC interim results posted today: Group income grew to £338.6 million, however, a difficult UK housing market led to £41.0 million of EBITDA versus £45.0 million in the same period last year.
Grenville Turner, Chairman at Countrywide plc, commented: “While we remain cautious, we are also optimistic as our broad-based business with diversified revenue streams provides a safeguard against the housing market cycle and the predicted continued growth in our lettings and commercial businesses are encouraging for the delivery of our strategic ambitions. Our acquisition programme is well positioned to take advantage of these positive trends, while prior acquisitions continue to deliver growth.
“We are keen to look beyond 2015 to ensure we have the building blocks for real growth and value added activity in place so we can deliver a significant level of shareholder returns in coming years with significant incremental returns from 2017 onwards.”
Alison Platt, Chief Executive, added: “As anticipated, the first half of the year saw depressed activity in the UK residential sales market as UK consumers held back from making decisions pending the outcome of the most uncertain General Election in a generation. However, the benefits of our strategy to diversify the Group’s revenue streams were underlined by Countrywide’s ability to ride those challenges with 50% of our profits derived from sources independent of the UK housing transaction market.
“Particularly pleasing has been our ability to show resilience through a tough market and at the same time to make strong headway in implementing our Building our Future strategy. Our focus for the strategy is on growth and building a business which is bigger, because it is better.
“I firmly believe that our success is attributable to the continued support and commitment of everyone at Countrywide. We have the experience and passion to create the best environment and structure for our people to deliver outstanding customer experience while ensuring we capitalise upon all the opportunities offered by the UK property sector, both residential and commercial.”
For details in full see http://www.countrywide.co.uk/investor-relations/results-and-presentations/
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