House builder Persimmon posts bumper results
Persimmon is the latest house builder to benefit from the UK’s chronic housing shortage after reporting a sharp increase in annual profits yesterday. Higher prices and higher demand driven by a lack of supply has pushed sales up by 13% to £2.9bn in the year to the end of December.
Nicholas Wrigley, Group Chairman, reportedly said: “Persimmon delivered an outstanding performance in 2015, supported by improving customer sentiment and a mortgage market which is responding to customer demand.
“It is now four years since we launched our long term strategy focused on growing Persimmon into a stronger, larger business while maintaining capital discipline and delivering robust free cash generation. The Group’s ability to grow completion volumes by more than 55% through this period while simultaneously returning £733m of excess capital to shareholders underlines the strength of its operating model.
“Customer activity in the early weeks of the 2016 spring season has been encouraging and today’s further £860m enhancement to the Capital Return Plan to a total of £9.00 per share is a measure of the Board’s confidence in the Group’s future progress.”
To see Final Results 2015 in full on Persimmon website click here