Developer’s ‘resilience’ delivers profit growth despite headwinds
Midlands developer IM Properties has revealed pre-tax profits of £63.6m, which it sees as evidence of its resilience to the current “political and economic headwinds” affecting parts of the market.
The group, which is one of the largest privately-owned developers in the UK, recorded a 9% increase in profits in 2017 despite turnover reducing 18%, to £142m.
IM Properties redeveloped 55 Colmore Row in Birmingham and the sale of the flagship office scheme, along with other transactions, ensured its investment division realising a profit of £23.3m from asset sales.
Tim Wooldridge, managing director of IM Properties, believes they are “well placed to continue to take the business to the next level in the medium term”.
Its pipeline includes a number of significant sites along the M42 and across the Midlands. The most eye-catching is the £350m Peddimore scheme, near Sutton Coldfield, while its land bank has capacity to deliver 17m sq ft of logistics and manufacturing space.
Wooldridge said: “We have set our business up to strike a balance between the lower income returns from our institutional grade investment portfolio and the higher returns generated by our development division, which we have grown substantially over the last decade. The two elements of the business very much support each other.”
The group, which has developed Blythe Valley Business Park in Solihull, achieved a total return on capital employed of 14%, which it said was three percentage points above the industry average.
Wooldridge added: “The distribution of assets across the business sits well in terms of risk exposure and we will continue to evolve and restructure the business to ensure that it is resilient to the political and economic headwinds being experienced presently.”
