Henry Boot PLC on Tuesday said its annual results were the ‘best ever’ despite a ‘turbulent’ year.
The property developer, based in Sheffield, England, reported pretax profit grew to £45.6 million in 2022 from £35.1 million in 2021, as revenue rose by 48% to £341.4 million from £230.6 million
The company attributed the results to the completion of £279 million worth of sales across its industrial and logistics, urban development and residential markets.
Return on capital employed was 12% in 2022, up from 9.6% in 2021. Net asset value per share at year-end was 295 pence, up 10% from 267p at the end of 2021.
Nevertheless, Henry Boot said it faced challenges as rising interest rates hurt UK property values.
The company proposed a final dividend of 4.00 pence, up 10% from 3.63p a year ago. This brought the total dividend for 2022 to 6.66p, up 10% from 6.05 in 2021.
Moving forward, Henry Boot said its immediate outlook is ‘uncertain’, but it said some indicators, such as supply restrictions lifting and cost pressures easing, suggest the UK property market is improving. The company said it will remain focused on its development programme.
Chief Executive Officer Tim Roberts said: ‘Whilst we remain cautious about the near term trading climate, expecting 2023 to be a tougher year, our rock solid balance sheet offers resilience to both weather any further economic uncertainty and to take advantage of any opportunities that arise from it.’
Shares were up 4.0% to 233.00 pence in London on Tuesday morning. The stock is down 27% over the past 12 months.
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