Trading Update

RNS Number : 8733J

Inland Homes PLC

23 July 2013

 

Tuesday 23 July 2013

Inland Homes PLC

("Inland Homes" or the "Group")

Inland Homes identifies brownfield land in the South and South-East of England principally for residentially led development schemes.  The business then enhances the land value by obtaining planning permission.  It also builds houses for private sale and in addition sells consented land onto other developers.

Trading update

The Board of Inland Homes provides the following update on its activities ahead of its Preliminary Results announcement for the year ended 30 June 2013.

The Group has performed strongly with profitability ahead of market expectations. 

House building programme

The decision to substantially increase Inland Homes' own house building programme is proving to be very successful.  By the end of June 2013, the Group achieved the sale of 55 homes (2012: 9 homes) generating revenues of £11.4 million (2012: £1.7 million). 

Inland Homes and Drayton Garden Village Ltd ("DGVL") have a combined development programme of 453 homes across seven sites with current forward sales either agreed or contracted at £42.5 million. 

Land

During the course of the year, a number of notable planning permissions were achieved including 265 plots at Carters Quay, Poole and 101 plots at St John's Hospital, Chelmsford, Essex. 

Inland Homes also witnessed strong demand for its 'land with planning permission' and in the financial year just ended, the Group disposed of 355 plots (2012: Nil) generating revenues of £15.35 million; DGVL sold a further 76 plots (2012: 116 plots) realising revenues of £5.30 million (2012: £6.7m).

Despite an increasingly competitive land market, prior to the year end Inland Homes secured further opportunities including options over a number of sites and exchanged contracts for the unconditional purchase of four further sites for a total consideration of £9.0 million.  These opportunities provide the potential for an additional 366 residential plots. Our objective remains - to increase our land bank year on year whilst growing the number of plots built out and sold.

Group finances

After considerable investment in land and work in progress, including the payment of deferred consideration of £6.1 million, the Group finished the financial year with cash balances of £12.2 million and net borrowings of £3.7 million. 

DGVL has also made a further reduction of the outstanding deferred consideration which further increases Inland Homes' profit share from DGVL to 74.4%.  The Board expects Inland Homes' profit share to increase to 90% by the end of March 2014.

Summary

We are experiencing strong interest from both developers and housing associations for plots with planning consent and post the financial year-end we remain in dialogue with a number of parties in this regard.

Stephen Wicks, Inland Homes' Chief Executive commented: 

"The Board is delighted to provide this trading update reporting a strong performance by the Group with profitability ahead of market expectations.

We have positioned Inland Homes with a clear sustainable strategy for the future with the following key characteristics:

•      growing the size and quality of our underlying land bank year on year;

•      increasing our direct house building activities to become a major regional house builder;

•      to maintain the core activity of selling consented building plots to other developers; and

•      keep a strong focus on our very healthy financial position.

We look forward to updating the market and our shareholders in more detail when we report our Preliminary Results."

Enquiries:
www.inlandplc.com AIM: Ticker: INL
Inland Homes plc	finnCap	TooleyStreet Communications
Stephen Wicks, Chief Executive	Nominated Adviser & Broker	IR, corporate & media relations
Nishith Malde, Finance Director Paul Brett, Land Director	Corporate Finance: Matthew Robinson or Rose Herbert	Fiona Tooley, Director or Graeme Cull, Consultant
Tel: [phone]	Corporate Broking: Simon Starr or Brian Patient	Tel: [phone] Tel: [phone]
	Tel: [phone]

 

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