Persimmon Profit Climbs On Higher Volume, Price; Sees Good Autumn Sales Season

(RTTNews) - UK-based home builder Persimmon Plc. (PSN.L) reported Tuesday that its first-half profit before tax increased 29 percent to 352.3 million pounds from last year's 272.8 million pounds. Basic earnings per share increased 19 percent to 92.0 pence from 77.3 pence last year.

Revenue grew 12 percent to 1.49 billion pounds from 1.33 billion pounds a year ago. Legal completions increased 6 percent to 7,238 new homes sold, and average selling price of 205,762 pounds were up 6 percent.

Jeff Fairburn, Group Chief Executive, said: "Persimmon's robust trading performance in the first half of 2016 was driven by our continued focus on meeting market demand to deliver controlled sustainable growth... While the result of the EU Referendum has created increased economic uncertainty, customer interest since then has been robust with visitor numbers to our sites around 20 percent ahead year on year. "

The company said its private sale reservation rate since 1 July is currently 17 percent ahead of the same period last year.

The company is now trading through the traditionally slower summer weeks but customer demand remains encouraging and it anticipates a good autumn sales season.

Looking ahead, the company said it is confident that long term strategic focus will continue to deliver strong returns for shareholders.