Last checked at 
(Alliance News) - Housebuilder Berkeley Group on Wednesday credited its willingness to take on "large-scale, complex" sites in London and the south east of England for a strong rise in interim earnings.
For the six months to October 31, revenue rose 36% to GBP1.22 billion from GBP895.9 million last year, and pretax profit increased 26% to GBP290.7 million from GBP230.8 million.
Looking ahead, Berkeley raised its earnings expectation for the current financial year by 5% from the current guidance, which was for pretax profit to be at a similar level to last financial year of GBP518.1 million.
Further, as a result of a resilient sales market, its delivery pipeline and the recovery of sales to pre-pandemic levels, Berkeley said pretax profit growth is expected to be around 5% per annum for the next three financial years. This sees Berkeley on a path to delivering GBP625 million of pretax profit for the year ending April 30, 2025, it said.
"The performance reflects Berkeley's conviction and investment in its strategy over the last 18 months, which is focused on London and the South East, the country's most under-supplied housing markets, in spite of the challenges presented by the pandemic, supply chain constraints, and regulatory environment," said Chief Executive Officer Rob Perrins.
"Over this time, we have continued to deliver in line with our uniquely long-term operating model, progressing construction across our portfolio of 64 live projects. These include 30 long-term, highly complex regeneration sites, of which 25 are now in delivery."
Berkeley said its labours in the capital also give it strong environment credentials, with 83% of its site under construction located on brownfield land.
The company noted it has in place a long-term plan to return GBP282 million per year to shareholders through to September 2025 through dividend or share buybacks. Berkeley also has identified GBP455 million of surplus capital to be returned by the end of April 2023 through either extra cash returns to shareholders or incremental land investment.
Berkeley shares were up 4.3% early Wednesday.
Here is what you need to know at the London market open:
----------
MARKETS
----------
FTSE 100: up 0.2% at 7,353.52
----------
Hang Seng: up 0.1% at 23,996.87
Nikkei 225: closed up 1.4% at 28,860.62
S&P/ASX 200: closed up 1.3% at 7,405.40
----------
DJIA: closed up 492.40 points, or 1.4%, at 35,719.43
S&P 500: closed up 95.08 points, or 2.1%, at 4,686.75
Nasdaq Composite: closed up 461.76 points, or 3.0%, at 15,686.92
----------
EUR: up at USD1.1290 (USD1.1241)
GBP: up at USD1.3242 (USD1.3224)
USD: down at JPY113.35 (JPY113.58)
Gold: up at USD1,790.21 per ounce (USD1,785.50)
Oil (Brent): firm at USD74.83 a barrel (USD74.74)
(changes since previous London equities close)
----------
ECONOMICS AND GENERAL
----------
Wednesday's key economic events still to come
0700 EST US MBA weekly mortgage applications survey
1030 EST US EIA weekly petroleum status report
----------
Japan's economy shrank slightly more than initially thought in the third quarter. Data from the Cabinet Office showed gross domestic product contracted 0.9% quarter-on-quarter in the three months to September 30. This marked a slightly worsened estimate from the initial 0.8% decline reported. On an annualised basis, GDP fell 3.6% in the third quarter, a more significant downgrade from the initial 3.0% fell reported.
----------
US President Joe Biden wants to further arm Ukraine in the event of an invasion by Russia, according to the White House. "We would provide additional defensive materiel to the Ukrainians above and beyond that which we are already providing," Biden's National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan said after a video summit between the US president and his Russian counterpart Vladimir Putin on Tuesday. "And we would fortify our NATO allies on the eastern flank with additional capabilities in response to such an escalation," Sullivan added. Biden again warned Putin of economic consequences in the event of an escalation in the conflict with Ukraine. The White House said after the conversation that Biden expressed "deep concerns of the US and [its] European allies about Russia's escalation of forces surrounding Ukraine." The summit, which focused on tensions over the Ukraine conflict, was scheduled to run for several hours, but ended after only about two hours.
----------
The newly-elected lower house of the German parliament is set to elect Olaf Scholz as chancellor on Wednesday as Angela Merkel leaves the political stage after 16 years at the helm of Europe's largest economy. The Bundestag vote, by secret ballot without debate, is seen as a formality after Scholz's Social Democrats, which emerged narrowly ahead in the late September elections, agreed a coalition deal with the Greens and the pro-business Free Democratic Party. Following an early morning vote, Scholz and his cabinet of 16 ministers - seven from the SPD, five from the Greens and four from the FDP - are to be sworn in by President Frank-Walter Steinmeier.
----------
BROKER RATING CHANGES
----------
UBS RAISES CRODA INTERNATIONAL TO 'BUY' (NEUTRAL) - PRICE TARGET 11,500 (9,000) PENCE
----------
JEFFERIES RAISES OCADO TO 'HOLD' (UNDERPERFORM) - PRICE TARGET 1,850 (950) PENCE
----------
JEFFERIES STARTS LONDON STOCK EXCHANGE WITH 'BUY' - PRICE TARGET 8,500 PENCE
----------
COMPANIES - FTSE 100
----------
Taylor Wimpey said Chief Executive Officer Pete Redfern will step down from the role after 14 years and will leave the housebuilder once a suitable candidate has been identified and a full handover has taken place. Taylor Wimpey said it has a succession plan in place and the recruitment process is advanced, with a selection process considering both internal and external candidates.
----------
COMPANIES - FTSE 250
----------
SSP Group, which operates food and beverage outlets in travel locations, reported a fall in annual revenue as government-imposed travel restrictions affected all of its major markets for a large proportion of the year. For the financial year ended September 30, SSP posted revenue of GBP834.2 million, down 42% from GBP1.43 billion last year, as its pretax loss narrowed to GBP411.2 million from GBP425.8 million. Turning to current trading, SSP said revenue in first nine weeks of the new financial year was averaging 66% of 2019 levels. The London-based firm highlighted that sales trends have continued to improve, with air passenger numbers in the UK and continental Europe boosted by an extended European summer holiday season. In addition, rail passenger numbers were continuing to benefit from commuters returning to offices in greater numbers, it said. Deputy CEO Jonathan Davies said: "Looking ahead, the medium-term outlook remains unchanged, which is for a return to broadly pre-Covid levels of like-for-like revenue and [earnings before interest, tax, depreciation, and amortization] margins by 2024. We are now starting to mobilise the pipeline of around 200 new outlets that have already been secured and we anticipate delivering approximately 15% of additional net contract gains over the medium term."
----------
Centrica has agreed to sell Spirit Energy's Norwegian oil and gas assets for about GBP800 million, with some adjustments likely. Centrica will receive 69% of the sale proceeds, about GBP560 million. The British Gas-owner said the sale is part of its effort to focus its business portfolio.
----------
Egyptian gold miner Centamin reported a 1.1 million ounce increase in the mineral reserve at the Sukari mine, the biggest increase in reserve in 10 years. It said its 12-year mining schedule has put Sukari on the path to producing 500,000 ounces of gold per annum over the next decade.
----------
COMPANIES - GLOBAL
----------
The Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine still provides some protection in the face of the Omicron variant, but its potency is sharply reduced, a South African lab study published on Tuesday has suggested. A small study - testing 14 plasma samples from 12 participants - from the Africa Health Research Institute in Durban found that Omicron resulted in a 41-fold decline in neutralising antibodies produced by people who had received a two-dose regimen of the Pfizer vaccine. Omicron escaped antibody neutralisation more effectively than the Beta variant. However, Omicron's escape of the Pfizer vaccine was "extensive but incomplete". The study noted that those who had been previously infected as well as vaccinated showed higher neutralisation rates than those only vaccinated.
----------
A partial outage on Tuesday hit Amazon.com's cloud-computing business, which powers many of the online sites people rely on, affecting some of the tech giant's many customers. The e-commerce colossus's Amazon Web Services, used by firms to store data without having to manage their own servers, reported "we have identified the root cause and are actively working towards recovery." It noted the impacts were centred in the eastern US and that the outage also affected "monitoring and incident response tools". According to the specialist website Gizmodo, Amazon's online shopping platform, Walt Disney's streaming service Disney+, and the payment application Venmo were affected by the outage. Twitter's new boss Parag Agrawal was to deliver live-streamed remarks, but the company said his talk would be recorded and replayed after an "AWS network connection issue".
----------
Wednesday's shareholder meetings
Alternative Liquidity Fund Ltd - AGM
Ashoka India Equity Investment Trust PLC - AGM
Blencowe Resources PLC - GM
Bowleven PLC - AGM
Europa Oil & Gas Holdings PLC - AGM
Gattaca PLC - AGM
International Biotechnology Trust PLC - AGM
Volta Finance Ltd - AGM
----------
By Tom Waite; thomaslwaite@alliancenews.com
Copyright 2021 Alliance News Limited. All Rights Reserved.
