Watkin Jones revenue jumps by a fifth amid strong housing demand
House builder Watkin Jones saw revenue jump by 21.5 per cent in the 2021 financial year amid strong demand for homes.
Intake climbed to £430m from £354m in 2020, with the uptick driven predominantly by sales in the build to rent market according to Watkin Jones. Gross profit also jumped by 11.7 per cent to £84.8m allowing the company to treat investors to earnings of 16.4 pence per share, almost double the earnings from the previous year which saw investors paid just 8.2 pence per basic share.
The company said it has sold 722 build to rent apartments and 9 private student accommodation schemes consisting of 2,750 beds since the start of 2021.
“This is a very strong set of results,” said Richard Simpson, Chief Executive Officer of Watkin Jones.
“As well as handing over 12 schemes on time, we leveraged our excellent institutional relationships to drive the forward sale of some 3,800 beds and continued to enhance the depth and quality of our development pipeline, securing good visibility of future earnings,” he continued.
The strong results come as the construction market faces a challenging operating environment as a result of the pandemic. According to the latest government insolvency data hundreds of construction companies are collapsing every month amid supply chain disruption, inflation and staff shortages.
Despite these sector wide challenges Watkin Jones said that it had completed all its build to rent and private student accommodation projects scheduled for 2021.
“Since the year end, we have continued this excellent momentum across the business with increasingly strong investor appetite for residential for rent homes,” Simpson added.
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