Boom-time building firm rakes in £3.3bn sales
BRITAIN’S most profitable housebuilder has raked in another £3.3billion in sales while leaseholders are left facing huge bills to fix unsafe flats.
Persimmon has started the year with a £1.2billion cash pile and a record order book, it said yesterday. Analysts predict that it made £854million in profits in 2020 despite the coronavirus – and paid shareholders dividends worth £351million.
Persimmon said revenue in 2020 fell by less than 10 per cent from £3.65billion to £3.3billion, despite the first national lockdown. Its average sale price was around £230,500, up from £215,709 in 2019, while its total agreed sales are already worth another £1.7 billion.
Hundreds of thousands of leaseholders across England and Wales are facing average bills of £40,000 each to replace dangerous cladding, similar to that found on Grenfell Tower. They are legally obliged to foot the bill of the cladding replacement.
Last week, the Mail revealed Persimmon had made pre-tax profit of £2.1billion since the Grenfell tragedy, not including its 2020 figures. The firm has not said how many of its homes have safety issues, or how much money it was putting towards fixing the problem, although some experts expect that Persimmon will set funds aside. But chief executive Dean Finch (pictured below) yesterday hailed a ‘robust’ year, adding that 2021 had ‘opened well’. He could earn £3.6million a year if he reaches performance targets. A Persimmon spokesman said: ‘Although we have not historically built many highrise residential buildings, we continue to review previous developments to identify any issues. Alongside other builders and the Home Builders Federation we are liaising with government to find a way forward.’ Last week, Barratt Developments, Britain’s biggest housebuilder, said it would resume dividend payments after selling a record number of homes in the past six months. It did not comment on the cladding issue yesterday.