Housebuilder Lovell adds to Morgan Sindall profits boom
A housebuilder working on scores of new homes across Shropshire has helped deliver strong profit growth at parent company Morgan Sindall, figures out this morning reveal.
It helped contribute to a group revenue figure for the first six months of the year that jumped 14% to £1.3 billion while pre-tax profits soared 48% to £23.7m. Morgan Sindall's order book is also up, by 5%, to £3.8 billion.
Operating profits for the six months leapt 37% to £24.9 million and shareholders will be celebrating as the interim dividend payout is hiked 23% to 16p per share.
Meanwhile the group's Birmingham based affordable housing business, Lovell, has a £154m order book in the Midlands and expects to complete more than 400 new homes across the region this year.
It has already started work on The Oaklands: a 91-home mixed tenure scheme – 47 homes for market rent and 44 for sale – in Dawley, Telford, with Nuplace. Lovell is also delivering another 53 market sale dwellings for Nuplace in Madeley, Telford where work began in December 2016.
In April 2017, Lovell began two further schemes for Nuplace: 25 homes in Hadley, Telford and 33 homes in Newport, Telford.
The company is continuing to carry out housing refurbishment work – including replacement kitchens, bathrooms and external works – worth up to £3.5 million annually for Cannock Chase District Council.
Lovell has completed a development of 69 extra care apartments in Shrewsbury for Wrekin Housing Trust and is continuing to deliver 77 open market sale homes through the scheme.
Work is due to start later this summer on two schemes for Walsall Housing Group which will create 65 homes.
Lovell managing director Jonathan Goring says: “2017 has started well for Lovell with the company set to complete over 2,000 homes across the UK this year. Our combined national forward order book and regeneration and development pipeline is now worth over £1.2 billion."
Morgan Sindall group chief executive John Morgan said: "This is a strong set of results, driven by another period of margin and profit growth in Fit Out and further progress on margin recovery in Construction & Infrastructure. Reflecting our overall profit performance, our strong balance sheet and cash performance, and our confidence in the quality of our business, we are increasing the interim dividend by 23% to 16p per share.
"With the current trading patterns in Fit Out and the forward visibility provided by the size and quality of its order book, together with further margin improvement in construction & infrastructure and an increase in scheme completions in partnership housing and urban regeneration, we are confident of another strong performance by the group in the second half."
The construction and infrastructure arm of Morgan Sindall is part of the £100 million joint venture to refurbish the M5 motorway viaduct at Oldbury.
It is also due to build a £27 million mathematical sciences building at the University of Warwick. Morgan Sindall is currently working on a £40 million Collaborative Teaching Laboratory (CTL) for the University of Birmingham and is part of a joint venture that won the Central Enabling Works Contract for High Speed Two (HS2), worth up to £100 million to Morgan Sindall over a period of four years. It has also handed over the £30m commercial redevelopment of the 55 Colmore Row building in Birmingham to its developer customer, IM Properties (IMP).
