Strong second half gives Henry Boot reasons to be cheerful
Although 2024 saw the Sheffield-based property group report a fall in pre-tax profit to £30.7m, restructuring and positive news from H2 make it well-placed for the future, chief executive Tim Roberts said.
Reporting its full year results today, Henry Boot said that group revenue had slipped from 2023’s £359.4m to £328.4m, with pre-tax proft declining by 7% from £37.3m.
Revenue fell slightly across each of the Hallam land promotion business, the HBD development arm, and the construction business. However, the results were very much in line with those forecast by the group, which highlighted several areas where it expects to push on in the coming years.
Roberts said: “As anticipated, after a challenging start to the year we delivered a strong second half which allowed us to report results in line with expectations. In particular, demand for our high quality land, prime development and premium homes has remained resilient.
“This led to us successfully completing almost £350m in land and property sales and continuing to lease up space, including setting a record office rent in Manchester at our Island development.
“Our investment portfolio also recorded another period of outperformance, with a total return of almost 10% for the year, meaning it has returned more than double the index over the last five years.”
Virgin Media committed to around half of the 90,000 sq ft Island scheme, a JV with GMPF, in October.
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In December, Henry Boot announced that over the next five years, it would take over the 50% of the Stonebridge Homes housing business it doesn’t already own.
Another major announcement came with the arrival of former GMI boss Lee Powell as managing director of Henry Boot Construction in January.
Roberts continued: “We also continued to shape the business, with the agreed buyout of Stonebridge Homes, where we are now the majority owner. We will take full ownership of this premium housebuilder in the coming years, continuing to scale the business up, and delivering synergies as we integrate it into Henry Boot.
“At Hallam Land, we’ve been quick off the mark in strengthening our team, so we are well prepared to capitalise on the positive changes to the NPPF, by increasing our planning applications fourfold to 10,000 plots over the next 12 months.
“At HBD, we’ve formed the Origin JV which we believe will help us to accelerate the delivery of our institutional quality industrial development pipeline.
“All of this, along with our rock-solid balance sheet, the prospect of recovering markets, and an easier planning environment, means we are well placed for the future.”
Among the operational highlights picked out in today’s results were Hallam securing 10 new sites with the potential for 6,500 homes, growing the land bank by 4%. HBD, already known as a partnership business, also caught the eye by teaming up with Feldberg Capital with the Origin joint venture, which will focus on premium-quality industrial & logistics facilities.
Completed HBD schemes amounted to £331m, of which HBD’s share was £188m GDV. Of this, 72% has been pre-let or pre-sold.
