Housebuilder Barratt has resumed dividends to shareholders after seeing record numbers of house sales in the second half of 2020.
The Leicestershire firm, which was founded in Newcastle, saw 9,077 house sales in the half-year, a 9.2% increase from the same period in 2019.
As a result, revenues rose more than 10% to £2.95bn and its net cash position more than doubled to £1.11bn.
But profits growth was held back by a £77m charge for furlough income repayments and remedial cladding work on some developments in the wake of the Grenfell tragedy.
In an update to the Stock Exchange, Barratt said it was resuming dividend payments with an interim dividend of 7.5p per share, with the aim of paying a full year dividend cover of 2.5 times.
Chief executive David Thomas said: “Our first priority remains keeping our colleagues and customers safe.
“Our customers are at the heart of everything we do and I would like to say a huge thank you to all of our employees and sub-contractors who have continued to deliver great quality homes and excellent customer service throughout these challenging times. We have achieved a fantastic first half performance, with a strong rebound in completion volumes and good progress towards our medium term targets.
“We have also made a solid start to the second half and are now over 95% forward sold for our financial year.
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“Whilst we are mindful of the continued economic uncertainties, the housing market fundamentals remain attractive and our outlook for the full year remains in line with expectations.”
Barratt warned that reservations at the start of January were below last year's levels, but said it was seeing strong forward sales at the end of the month.
It said its outlook for the full year remained in line with the board's expectations, with house sale completions set to be between 15,250 and 15.750.
Barratt said that “despite economic uncertainties, the housing market fundamentals remain attractive” with strong demand and Government support for housebuilding and to help buyers.
But it warned that mortgages were becoming harder to get for some customers, placing more importance on the Government's Help to Buy scheme to maintain numbers of first time buyers.
In December the company retained its title of Large Housebuilder of the Year at The Housebuilder Awards.