UK housebuilder reports "record" 10,600 home order book despite 2020's 70% profit drop

A UK housebuilder has today reported that it has a “record” forward order book despite a 68.4 per cent drop in profits.

Taylor Wimpey, which has offices in regions across the country, has announced that it has a record order book of 10,685 homes, valued at £2,684m.

This comes after a “very challenging” year, with the company reporting a 68.4 per cent fall in profit before tax, dropping from £835.9m in 2019 to £264.4m.

In today’s statement, the housebuilder also announced a new scheme to ensure fire safety in apartment buildings, investing £125m in supporting fire safety improvements in Taylor Wimpey projects from the last 20 years.

Pete Redfern, chief executive of Taylor Wimpey, commented: “2020 was a very challenging year, during which our priority has continued to be the health and safety of our colleagues, customers, suppliers and subcontractors.

“Operating performance has bounced back strongly in the second half of 2020, with build capacity returning to near normal levels and strong sales.

“We are confident in the medium term performance of the housing market and therefore accelerated our land purchases from May 2020 as high-quality land became available at attractive rates.

“We are now focusing on driving efficiencies across the business, the roll out of our new house type range and implementing our ambitious new environmental strategy.

“The UK housing market has been resilient and continues to reinforce our confidence in our outlook. We are a cash generative business with a strong balance sheet, and we are pleased to announce today that we will reinstate our ordinary dividend in line with our aim of providing a reliable income stream to our shareholders.

“As part of today’s results, we are also announcing help for building owners, with £125m in funding to support fire safety improvement works to bring Taylor Wimpey apartment buildings constructed in the last 20 years up to the recently updated current RICS EWS1 guidance.

“We have taken this decision in order to provide certainty for customers and leaseholders and to avoid them bearing the cost of investment to ensure their buildings are safe.”

Looking to promote your product/service to SME businesses in your region? Find out how Bdaily can help →