Last checked at 8 May 2018 12:00
8 May 2018
SAVILLS PLC
("Savills" or "the Company")
AGM Statement
Savills plc, the international real estate advisor, is today holding its Annual General Meeting (AGM) at 2.30pm, 33 Margaret Street, London, W1G 0JD, and provides the following AGM statement.
During the year to date Savills has traded in line with our expectations. Globally, our transaction businesses have continued to maintain a strong market share although, as anticipated, there is a tendency for transactions to take longer to complete. Our Consultancy and Property Management businesses have continued to perform well.
In the UK, trading was slightly ahead of our expectations principally down to strong performances in Central London Commercial transactions and from our portfolio of Less Transactional businesses including property management. UK commercial markets more generally are seeing greater uncertainty and a relative lack of stock which has reduced transaction levels. The residential market had a very quiet start to the year, however we have seen stronger levels of activity since the middle of March.
In Asia Pacific, Savills has had a good start to the year, despite adverse currency movements. Hong Kong and Korea have performed well offsetting slight declines in activity in Australia and Japan.
In the US, Savills Studley has had a slower start to the year than initially anticipated with the timing of transactions resulting in weaker volumes in New York and Washington. This offset stronger growth in other markets, notably California and New Jersey. Overall we have a good pipeline of instructions.
In Continental Europe, to date we have traded marginally behind our expectations, again due to delays in transactions, with stronger than anticipated performances in Germany, Netherlands and Sweden, largely offsetting slower performances in France and Poland and the continuing start-up costs in the Czech Republic. In Spain, the integration of Aguirre Newman has gone well and generally across the European business, pipeline activity is solid.
Savills Investment Management has performed as expected with a good pipeline of product launches.
Whilst we have started the year as expected, typically the first four months represent a disproportionately small element of the expected outturn for the full year. Consequently, at this stage in the year, we continue to anticipate overall performance to be in line with our expectations.
For further information, contact:
Savills 020 7409 8934
Jeremy Helsby, Group Chief Executive
Simon Shaw, Group Chief Financial Officer
Tulchan Communications 020 7353 4200
Peter Hewer
Will Palfreyman