Profits surge at Persimmon as Brexit fears brushed aside

L 15,000+ houses sold at an average price of £206,765 l New site visitors up by 7% in the first few weeks of year

Housebuilder Persimmon said customer confidence in thefirstweeksof2017hadbeen “encouraging” as it reported a robust performance last year.

The company, which has over 40 developments in Scotland, pointed to a “confident” housing market despite concerns over Brexit.

The owner of brands including Charles Church saw pretax profits rise 23 per cent to £774.8 million in the year to 31 December, while revenue rose 8 per cent to £3.1 billion.

Commenting on the immediate impact of the Brexit referendum outcome, the firm’s results statement said: “Despite some understandable caution being exercised by consumers and corporates alike during the period ahead of the EU referendum, the result created an immediate and significant uncertainty in the markets.

“However, the vast majority of the group’s customers remained focused on exchanging contracts and completing their new home purchases.”

Chairman Nicholas Wrigley added customer activity in the early weeks of the 2017 spring season has been “encouraging”.

The company said of current trading: “The UK new build housing market remains confident with customer demand for new homes supported by compelling mortgage products. We are pleased with customer activity in the first eight weeks of the 2017 spring season. Visitors to our sites are circa 7 per cent ahead year on year.

“We have experienced a normal week-on-week strengthening of the market on entering the 2017 spring selling season.”

Buyer demand and house prices have been surprisingly resilient since the referendum, thanks largely to rockbottom borrowing costs after interest rates were cut to 0.25 per cent in August.

Persimmon also flagged the “overall shortage of supply of housing in the UK” as a factor providing support to the market.

However, the company added: “We remain wary of the risks and increased uncertainties associated with the EU referendum result.

“The group is in a strong position to remain selective in its land replacement activities given the strength of its existing asset platform.” New home completions increased by 599 to 15,171 in 2016 with average selling prices up 3.8 per cent to £206,765. The Co-operative Group, one of the UK’S biggest food retailers, has selected ACI Worldwide, a provider of real-time electronic payment and banking services, to provide it with a webbased “cloud” wallet service for its recently announced membership scheme. The scheme, launched last year, enables Co-op members to save and spend cash earned on own-brand purchases and also see their purchases support local charities of their choice.