Henry Boot looks at opportunities as it sees early signs of recovery
HENRY Boot today said it had made a strong start to 2013 and is gearing up for the “nascent recovery”.
The South Yorkshire-based construction and development group’s chairman John Brown said it made strong progress last year in challenging construction and property markets and it is now ready to capitalise on investments in its land portfolio and planning permissions.
The 125-year-old firm, which as well as a plant hire business, operates the A69 road between Newcastle and Carlisle, said turnover reduced to £103.1m in the year to December 31 from £114.6m the year before due to lower land sales, which in turn reduced trading profit to £12.3m from £20.8m.
However, the combination of development gains valued for the first time, along with realised profits on investment properties disposed of, amounted to £2.4m profit compared to a deficit of £4.3m in 2011.
The Sheffield firm is proposing to increase its final dividend to 2.9p from 2.6p, giving a total for the year of 4.7p, up 11%.
Net asset value per share slipped slightly to 139p from 142p.
Chairman Mr Brown said: “We have invested heavily in the land portfolio which now stands at over 9,000 acres. Furthermore, we achieved a significant number of planning permissions which will feed into sales during 2013 and beyond.
“Strategically we must now capitalise on these valuable assets, whilst at the same time growing the opportunity pipeline to ensure we continue the momentum in years to come.
“We have made a strong start to 2013 across all our businesses. Plant and construction activity is ahead of 2012 and Road Link (A69) Limited is performing to plan. We have a number of profitable developments in progress, have already concluded two land sales and have a significant level of interaction with the planning process which, if successful, will result in a growing number of profitable disposal opportunities to a growing house building industry… we have geared up our balance sheet to take advantage of the nascent recovery, investing in the business opportunities that will generate growing shareholder returns into the future.”
