AGM Statement

Taylor Woodrow PLC 20 April 2004 20 April 2004 TAYLOR WOODROW PLC AGM Trading Statement Iain Napier, Chief Executive of Taylor Woodrow, will make the following comments at today's AGM. 'During the first three and a half months of 2004, we have continued to see strong market conditions across our housing operations, in United Kingdom, North America and Spain. In the United Kingdom, visitor levels and reservations per site are ahead of last year. Selling prices also continue to move forward. So far this year, 52% of our 2004 budgeted sales have either been completed or reserved, compared to 39% at the same time last year. Completions so far this year, coupled with 2004 sales in the order book, have been made at an average sales price of £192,000, up 6% on the average sales price for full year 2003. We continue to build smaller homes and, on an average sales price per square foot basis, we are showing a 10% increase over full year 2003. First half operating margins for the UK Housing business are expected to improve over the proforma-blended margin achieved in the same period last year. Active sites are planned to increase by 16 to 219 by the end of the first half. Our forecast for the end of the second half is to be operating from around 210 active sites, in line with our previous expectations. We remain on track to complete around 10,000 homes during 2004 in the UK, of which around 3,900 will complete in the first half. During this year, all Wilson Connolly sites have been integrated into Taylor Woodrow systems. We remain confident of securing the £12.5 million Wilson Connolly acquisition synergies although these will be weighted towards the second half after rationalisation of the regional network and central overhead in the first half. In North America, we have also seen visitor levels and reservations per site ahead of last year. So far this year over 75% of our budgeted sales for the year have either been completed or reserved at an average selling price of £190,000, down 8% on 2003 prices, due to a continued move to the mid market in California and general sales mix. First half operating margins for the North American housing business are expected to show modest improvement over the same period last year. We remain on track to show strong growth by completing around 3,500 homes during 2004 in North America, of which around 1,500 will complete in the first half. The housing business in Spain also continues to perform well and we remain confident of a similar level of performance in 2004 as in 2003. Construction's order book stands at £762 million - a similar level to last year. We also announced the sale of the St Katharines and K2 property developments this year for £283.3 million. We received £166.3 million for St Katharines and will receive a further £117 million when the K2 property development is complete in late December 2004 or early January 2005. We redeemed the 2014 9.5% first mortgage debenture and as announced this will give rise to an exceptional interest charge of £41 million in the profit and loss account in the first half. In summary, we remain on track to deliver another set of good results this year in line with the Board's expectations.' Taylor Woodrow will issue a first half trading update during early July 2004. -ENDS- For further information, please contact: Ian Morris 0121 600 8520 / 07816 518767 Taylor Woodrow Corporate Communications Jonathan Murrin 0121 600 8521 / 07816 518718 Taylor Woodrow Investor Relations William Clutterbuck 020 7379 5151 / 07785 292617 The Maitland Consultancy This information is provided by RNS The company news service from the London Stock Exchange
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