Savills profits swell eight-fold, reaping rewards of a UK house buying frenzy

Real estate services group Savills has seen its profit before tax surge more than eight-fold in the past six months, as the firm posted record levels of UK residential transaction advisory.

The firm raked in revenue of £932.6m in the six months to 30 June, up by some £141.2m in comparison to last year.

Meanwhile, group profit before tax came in at £63.8m, swinging from just £7.7m in the first half of 2020.

Shares were jumped 5.1 per cent by mid-morning, at a total share price of 1,220.00.

Amid a house buying gold rush pushed by the end of the stamp duty holiday, Savills posted a record UK residential transaction advisory performance.

Revenues in this division rocketed 97 per cent, due in part to a continuation of the recovery seen in the late months of last year.

“Our transactional businesses have benefited from improving sentiment in most markets, although travel restrictions still represent an obstacle to cross-border capital deployment,” group boss Mark Ridley explained.

“Looking ahead, we expect some discretionary cost to start to normalise and certain of our markets to moderate in the second half of the year and, while pandemic risks continue including the current lockdowns in a number of Asian markets, we are confident in the group’s ability both to benefit from progressive recovery in transactional markets and to continue to execute our growth strategies.” 

Savills earned around 34.6p per share, up from 3.9p in the same period last year.

The boss added that “assuming no new material disruption, the board expects the performance for the year as a whole to be meaningfully ahead of its previous expectations.”