Taylor Wimpey sees top end profit

Taylor Wimpey has been busy. The housebuilder is fully sold for 2010 and expects full-year profit to be at the top end of expectations, it's got a news finance director and has agreed a revised £950m credit facility with its banks.The group has performed well in the UK and trading is stable despite the economic uncertainty, in line with forecasts since the interim results at the beginning of August."In the UK, we anticipate that trading will continue to be subdued for the remainder of this year due to the continuing impact of constrained mortgage lending and ongoing wider economic uncertainty," it said Tuesday."We look forward to 2011 with a healthy order book and our focus remains on driving further margin improvement through cost reductions and prioritising profit over volumes." Summer was "slightly" more active than the company had expected, though caution ahead of last month's government Comprehensive Spending Review cooled business during the autumn."We have seen an incremental improvement in sales since the announcement, but mortgage availability remains a constraint on industry volumes," the firm said.Private net reservation rates for the second half to date average 0.47 per site per week, lower than the first half and last year's equivalent, while average selling prices on reservations have been broadly flat since the half year.It was a weak spring and summer in the US, but there's been greater stability in the autumn as the underlying impact of the cessation of the Homebuyer Tax Credit programme starts to diminish.Operating profit there should be above the upper end of expectations, despite completions running at around 10% below last year.Taylor Wimpey has also reached full agreement with its banks on the terms of a revised £950m credit facility, conditional on obtaining £350 of debt capital market funding in the public or private debt capital markets.But that has signalled the exit of finance boss Chris Rickard. He stands aside today as Ryan Mangold, who joined Taylor Wimpey as group financial controller in April 2009, takes the hot seat.