UK's Persimmon expects strong demand to persist in 2022

March 2 (Reuters) - Britain's second-largest homebuilder Persimmon Plc said on Wednesday it expected strong housing demand to persist despite rising inflation woes and a tightening cost-of-living squeeze after the firm posted a 23% rise in annual profit.

The FTSE 100 firm's pre-tax profit for the year ended Dec. 31 came in at 966.8 million pounds ($1.28 billion), slightly below a company-compiled average forecast of 975 million pounds from 19 analysts. ($1 = 0.7530 pounds) (Reporting by Aby Jose Koilparambil in Bengaluru; editing by Milla Nissi)