Savills Share News (SVS)

A positive start to the year which saw continued growth in the UK in the January-April period helped lift shares in Savills, the FTSE 250-listed international real estate advisor, on Monday. As anticipated, the company delivered a "robust" performance in both Asia and Continental Europe, while its US business has an improved pipeline. Cordea Savills, the group's investment management business, traded in line with its expectations of revenue and profit growth. Discussing each region more specifically, the group said: "In the UK commercial markets, Savills has continued to maintain a significant share of the Prime Central London investment and leasing markets, although, as anticipated, the shortage of supply of investment stock has become increasingly apparent. "Growth in investment volume outside London has continued from last year and development activity has further increased. We continue to expect regional recovery to be the primary driver of growth for our UK commercial business in 2014." The UK Prime Residential market continued to perform well with year-on-year increases in both volume and value, although as anticipated, the group reported some recent cooling in the Prime and Super Prime Central London market. "In contrast, there remains strong demand for property in the £1-2m price segments of the North, East and South West London regions. The regional UK residential market is continuing to recover with growing volumes and a significant increase in buyers registering with Savills," it continued. In Asia the Japanese business continued to grow "substantially", while in mainland China both revenue and earnings grew as expected despite a slowdown in transaction markets. "Globally, our Consultancy business has experienced continued revenue growth with particular strengths in UK Development consultancy and UK/Continental European Valuation consultancy," the group added. "The Property Management business has delivered a solid increase in revenue, particularly in the UK and in Asia where we continued to grow our market share in the core markets of Hong Kong and China." The share price climbed 0.48% to 628p by 13:45.NR