McCarthy & Stone delivers record full-year revenue
Retirement housebuilder McCarthy & Stone announced its financial results for the full year ended 31 August on Tuesday.
The FTSE 250 company said it delivered “industry-leading growth” in revenue and unit completions and remained on track to build and sell more than 3,000 units per annum over the medium term.
Underlying profit before tax was up 19% over the prior year to £105.0m, off revenue that increased by 31% to a new record of £635.9m.
Legal completions improved 20% to 2,299 units, and the company’s net average selling price increased by 8% to £259,000.
Adjusted underlying earnings per share were up 9% to 16.1p.
McCarthy & Stone said it was in a “strengthened financial position”, with £52.8m of net cash at year end, swinging from £44.4m of net debt at the end of the 2015 financial year.
The company’s board proposed a final dividend of 3.5p per share in accordance with previous guidance given within its half year results.
That follows the pro-rata interim dividend of 1p per share, giving a total dividend for the year of 4.5p per share.
“I am pleased to present our first set of results since rejoining the Main Market of the London Stock Exchange in November 2015,” said chairman John White.
“The group delivered record revenue this year, together with robust growth in completions, reservations and profits.
“We continue to capitalise on the attractive demographic opportunity and structural shortage of supply of retirement housing in the UK.”
White said he was encouraged by the company’s flexibility and resilience shown in response to market uncertainty surrounding the EU referendum result in June.
“Our highly conditional land bank and experienced management team enabled us to navigate the uncertainty,” he explained.
“We acted quickly to close out completion chains and adopted a more measured approach with respect to land investment, delivering a strong balance sheet at the year end and positioning us for a quick return to business as usual as soon as market conditions improved.”