LANDBANK

Shares in Springfield Properties yesterday traded 10 per cent above its float price last autumn as the Scottish housebuilder forecast annual profits would be 5 to 10 per cent above market expectations.

In maiden results as a public company, the firm announced underlying interim pre-tax profits up just under 20 per cent at £3.1 million from £2.6m in the same period the previous year.

Revenues lifted 10.5 per cent to £54.8m in the six months to end-november, with an interim dividend of 1p being paid. Shares closed up 6p at 116.5p, compared with a flotation price of 106p.

Sandy Adam, Springfield’s executive chairman and grandson of the firm’s founder Wilfred Adam, said: “I’m delighted that the share price is well up. We have delivered what we said, and it is very good news.”

Springfield said its private housing and affordable housing divisions made good progress in the period.

Private housing sales rose 6 per cent to £43m, with an average selling price of £234,000,

0 The Scottish housebuilder is headed by chief executive Innes Smith

INNES SMITH, CEO up from £208,000 in the first half of the previous year.

Sales in affordable housing, which Springfield often builds in partnership with councils and housing associations, jumped 40 per cent to £11.7m from £8.4m last time, with an average selling price down £1,000 at £122,000.

Asked if the cheaper housingarmwasastrongdefensive characteristic of the company, Innes Smith, Springfield’s chief executive, said: “Without a doubt. There is the longevity of contracts, we know the margins we can make and it derisks the business.”

Springfield said its landbank had increased to 10,605 plots from 9,195 last May, with nearly 42 per cent having planning permission.

Smith said: “We tend to work with progressive councils, we don’t identify land where there are [planning] logjams.”

The company said there had also been significant progress on its “village” sites. This included “strong sales” of £17.2m at the group’s site at Dykes of Gray, Dundee.

“We tend to work with progressive councils, we don’t identify land where there are [planning] logjams”