SMP.L Share News (SMP)

(Sharecast News) - Property investment and development group St Modwen delivered continued progress in its recently wrapped up trading year thanks to its refocused growth strategy.
St Modwen said on Thursday that while the external environment remained "uncertain" and prospects for parts of the UK property market continued to be challenging, the outlook for its two key sectors, industrial/logistics and regional housebuilding, were still underpinned by structural growth characteristics.

The FTSE 250-listed firm stated this was reflected in continued strong growth in its St Modwen Homes and Industrial & Logistics business units during 2019, whilst its Strategic Land & Regeneration business also made "good progress" in monetising the value of its residential land bank and residual non-core assets, while also progressing the longer-term opportunities in its pipeline.

As a result, St Modwen said that the underlying performance of the business was in line with expectations. However, it did warn that it expects to recognise an exceptional provision for a potential claim related to a historical development project - expected to reduce the group's net asset value for 2019 by around 8.0p per share.

Chief executive Mark Allan said: "Following the major repositioning of our business through the successful disposal of over 40% of our assets in the preceding 18 months, our focus in 2019 has been firmly on delivering the deep pipeline of opportunities in our existing portfolio.

"We have made strong progress on this during the year in each of our three business units and, supported by our solid capital base, we are confident that the continued delivery on this strategy will drive a meaningful improvement in return on capital and earnings over time."

As of 0840 GMT, St Modwen shares were up 1.56% at 455.50p.