By Anthony O. Goriainoff
Berkeley Group Holdings said Wednesday that pretax profit rose and beat consensus for fiscal 2023 as revenue increased, and that the future delivery of new homes was jeopardized by a planning environment and regulatory uncertainty and called for this to be resolved.
The U.K. house builder said there was a continually-evolving and increasingly burdensome regulatory environment in the U.K. and that this was constraining investment into brownfield regeneration and homebuilding.
“If housing delivery is to be maintained the planning system needs to respond to these challenges and certainty is needed in the regulatory environment as a matter of immediate priority,” it said.
For the year ended April 30 pretax profit was 604 million pounds ($771 million)–beating consensus of GBP597.5million–and up from GBP551.5 million a year earlier on the back of resilient business despite market volatility since the end of September. This was in-line with prior guidance of around GBP600 million.
The FTSE 100-listed company said revenue rose to GBP2.55 billion from GBP2.35 billion, while net asset value per share–a key industry metric–rose 2.8% to GBP31.01 from GBP28.18.
Including joint ventures, Berkeley delivered 4,637 homes over the year, up from 4,632 homes a year before.
Berkeley backed its guidance and said it was committed to maintaining a combined pretax profit of at least GBP1.05 billion across the next two fiscal years, and to returning GBP283 million per year to shareholders in dividends and buybacks to September 2025.
The company reported GBP2.14 billion in forward sales, down from GBP2.17 billion in fiscal 2022.
Write to Anthony O. Goriainoff at anthony.orunagoriainoff@dowjones.com
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