Taylor Wimpey swings to loss

Taylor Wimpey PLC said Wednesday that it swung to pretax loss for the first half amid the coronavirus and that it expects a profit hit for 2020.

The U.K. house builder posted pretax loss for the half year ended June 30 of 39.8 million pounds ($51.5 million), compared with pretax profit of GBP299.8 million a year earlier,

Revenue fell 56% to GBP754.6 million from GBP1.73 billion, it said. The company attributed the fall to closed sites and sales centers to curb the spread of the disease.

The company sold 2,771 homes in the period at an average price of GBP307,000, compared with 6,541 homes at GBP301,000 for the first half of 2019.

The order book at June 30 was GBP2.90 billion, rising to GBP3.02 billion as of July 26.

The board said that dividends remained cancelled to conserve cash, but that it would reinstate ordinary dividend payments from 2021.

Taylor Wimpey said 2020 completions would be hit by the disruption caused by the coronavirus, with fourth quarter completions shifting to the first quarter of 2021. It said it expects a significant hit to revenue and margins in 2020, and that it expects to deliver around 40% less completions in 2020.

Joe Hoppe

source:marketwatch.com