Barratt FY down 71%

Source: Construction Digital

Date :10/09/2008 09:32:24

Barratt Developments plc has seen a 71 percent drop in full year profits as the housing slump claimed yet another high-profile victim.

In a set of worrying full year figures Barratt, one of the UK’s largest residential property development companies, said that net income through June dropped to £86.4 million from £298.3 million the year before.

Profit before tax also decreased by 13 percent to £392.3 million against a 2007 figure of to £451 million.

Given this performance, Barratt announced that it has scrapped its final dividend for the year.

“Whilst we have produced a satisfactory set of results in an extremely challenging market, there is little prospect for any material improvement in trading conditions until mortgage finance and customer confidence return,” said Mark Clare, Group Chief Executive.

In the meantime, we have successfully refinanced our business. Our focus today and looking forward is to maximise sales revenues, reduce costs and generate cash to reduce debt,” he added.

So far this year, Barratt has already shed 1,200 jobs and either closed or merged ten divisions as it looks to cope with one of the worst market downturns in recent history.

Preliminary Financial Results for the year ended 30 June 2008