Development firm Henry Boot has seen profits grow by more than two-thirds as it eased back on the acquisition of new land.
The Sheffield firm has released unaudited interim results for the half of 2022 which show revenues rising 12% to £144.4m and profit before tax increasing 68% to £38.8m. The company said its first half performance was driven by land disposals and property development completions, as well as strong performance in residential land sales and industrial development activity.
But it said it had taken the decision to limit further site acquisitions, and highlighted issues with supplies, inflation and the planning system as headwinds it was facing.
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Chief executive officer Tim Roberts said: “We have had one of our best ever first half years with materially rising profits and good progress achieved against our strategic targets. Taking advantage of our three key markets we have made significant sales whilst being selective on purchases. This has allowed us to keep gearing low, despite continued investment in our high-quality committed development programme and our growing housebuilder, and at the same time increase our interim dividend by 10%.
“We have worked hard to do our best to adjust to supply restrictions, inflation and an increasingly complex planning system. This work, together with our committed team of people and the relatively high level of forward sales for 2023, see us well placed as we enter what seems yet another period of economic uncertainty.”
Henry Boot said it had sold 3,447 plots during the period and maintained its land bank at 92,981 plots. It had committed developments of £262m, with 73% pre-sold or pre-let, while around 1m sq ft of industrial and logistics development was under way.
The company has declared an interim dividend of 2.66p, 10% higher than last year.
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