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(Alliance News) - Redrow PLC on Wednesday said its performance deteriorated in the first half of its current financial year amid political uncertainty, but it expects improvement going forward.
The FTSE 250-listed housebuilder reported revenue of GBP870 million for the six months to the end of 2019, 10% lower compared to GBP970 million a year earlier, pushing pretax profit down by 15% to GBP157 million from GBP185 million.
Redrow said revenue was hurt by legal completions reducing from 2,970 to 2,554. Private completions were down by 99 and social completions were 317 lower.
The private average selling price was similar to last year at GBP387,000 versus GBP391,000.
"Redrow has once again delivered a robust operational and financial first-half performance consistent with our expectation that revenue will be considerably more weighted than usual to the second half," said Executive Chair John Tutte.
The wider UK housing market continued to be hurt by political uncertainty around Brexit and during the run-up to the general election, Redrow said. As a result, the time taken to close new homes' sales was longer than usual, particularly where extended chains were involved.
Notwithstanding this, the company said it achieved a record number of private reservations in the six months to the end of December with the value of reservations up 18% at GBP936 million year-on-year.
Redrow increased its interim dividend by 5% to 10.5 pence from 10p paid a year earlier.
Looking ahead, Tutte added: "Current market conditions, combined with our very strong order book give me confidence this will be yet another year of progress for Redrow and our expectations for the full year remain unchanged."
As at the end of 2019, Redrow said it had a total order book of GBP1.2 billion, in line with last year's record level.
Redrow shares were trading 0.7% higher in London on Wednesday at 828.00p each.
By Evelina Grecenko; evelinagrecenko@alliancenews.com
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