Yahoo Finance Taylor Wimpey plans £150m share buyback as profits surge
Taylor Wimpey (TW.L) said that demand for homes remained strong as it reported a 157% rise in full-year pre-tax profits to £679.6m ($909m).
Revenue rose more than 50% to £4.28bn. It has increased its dividend and announced a £150m share buyback.
Further, 2021 saw a 47% increase in UK completions including joint ventures to 14,087, up from 9,609 in 2020, driven by good build performance and strong demand.
Read more: Persimmon made £66,000 per house as profits jumped 23%
The group's average selling price increased £12,000 to £300,000, as the company reported a strong start to selling in 2022, with 1.02 sales per outlet per week compared with 0.91 in the same period the previous year..
The homebuilder said it expected sales price growth to continue to offset build cost inflation in 2022.
As of 27 February, the group was more than 60% forward sold for private completions in 2022.
"We continue to expect to deliver low single digit year-on-year completions growth in 2022 and to make further progress towards our 21-22% operating margin target," the company said in a statement.
The UK’s third-largest homebuilder declared a final dividend of 4.44 pence per share and has instructed Citigroup Global Markets to buy up to £75m of shares as first tranche of the buyback programme.
The firm said it would require an additional “modest prevision” to comply with proposed additional commitments from the industry in relation to fire safety and cladding issue following the Grenfell Tower fire in 2017, which resulted in 72 deaths.
Read more: Unsafe cladding: What new government ruling means for homeowners
“We continue to believe this is an industry-wide issue involving many types of organisations and therefore needs an industry-wide solution. If accepted by government, the Home Builders Federation proposal would result in an additional modest provision for Taylor Wimpey.”
The company has committed £165m to remediate its buildings so far.
Pete Redfern is standing down as chief executive after 14 years in the role. He will be replaced by group operations director Jennie Daly, who will take over next month, becoming the first female chief executive of a major housebuilder.
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