Housebuilder Mar City moves into profit as it announces new £10.7m contract
SOLIHULL housebuilder Mar City has secured a new contract to construct 137 new homes on a site in the West Midlands. The contract is worth an estimated £10.9m.
The contract, awarded by Mar City Developments Ltd, will see the new homes made available both for sale both to Housing Associations and to the open market.
The company also said it raised £1,650,000, before expenses, by way of a placing of 47,142,858 new ordinary shares at a price of 3.5p per share. The placing is with institutional investors and the placing price is at a 94% premium to the group’s closing price as of April 10, 2013. The proceeds of the placing are expected to provide finance toward future land purchases.
An application has been made for the 47,142,858 new ordinary shares to be admitted to trading on AIM. Dealings are expected to begin on Monday.
The announcement comes as the firm’s latest full year results show the group generated a pre-tax profit of £978,000 (2011: loss £1,285,000) on revenue of £8.97m (2011: £1.06m). Earnings per share reached 0.39p (2011: loss per share 0.54p). As of December 31, 2012, the group had net assets of £1,319,000 (2011: £213,000).
Hamilton Anstead, Mar City chairman, said: “In line with our strategy, we have moved the group into profit and have continued to build group revenues with a series of new contracts. I am very pleased to report that the group is at various stages of negotiation with third parties, including Housing Associations, for further contracts involving sites in the West Midlands, Nottinghamshire and London. We expect that these contracts, if secured, will all be signed during 2013 and enable Mar City to make further substantial progress in 2013 and 2014.”
