UK housebuilder Persimmon posts £2.76bn revenue in first quarter

Forward sales revenue for Persimmon was up 8 per cent in the first quarter of this year to £2.76bn, the UK housebuilder announced today ahead of its annual general meeting tonight.

The company also revealed that it had sold 9,048 new homes this year, up from 8,928 over the same period last year. Average selling prices rose from £229,500 in 2017 to £236,500 in the first quarter of this year.

However, the UK’s second-largest housebuilder only managed a modest increase in its share price after results were announced, gaining 1.4 per cent in early trading before easing back down to 2,700.

The property group’s positive results come amid pressure from major investors to pay its employees the “real living wage,” an issue that is likely to be divisive at this evening’s AGM.

Read more: Persimmon is under pressure on paying the “real living wage” at today’s AGM

Still, the housebuilder said that shareholder returns to date from the launch of the group’s new strategy in 2012 now exceed 500 per cent.

“Increasing profits, a sizeable bank of land ready for development and a housing market with a supply-demand imbalance mean things don’t get much better for Persimmon,” said George Salmon, equity analyst at Hargreaves Lansdown. “In a funny sort of way, that’s the worry. After all, history tells us these conditions won’t last forever.”

Read more: Persimmon pay could cause revolt as investors baulk at boss’s £100m bonus

Persimmon also said it has opened 65 of the 100 new sites it had planned for the first half of the year, and is building new homes on all sites that have planning consent. The house building firm is currently developing 375 active sales outlets across the country.