(Reuters) -UK homebuilder Taylor Wimpey Plc said on Wednesday it expects annual operating profit to be around the top end of the current market consensus range, helped by strong demand for its homes, and maintained volume growth targets for the year.
The update from Britain’s third-largest homebuilder comes at a time when the wider UK housing industry is plagued by challenges including surging costs, labour shortages and prolonged pandemic-related supply chain issues.
The FTSE 100 firm, which also has a small presence in Spain, said the sector had seen increased material and labour costs with build cost inflation of around 9-10%, but this had been fully offset by house price growth.
“We continue to expect low single digit year-on-year growth in UK completions for 2022 and our margin guidance remains unchanged, with underlying year-on-year progression towards the 21%-22% target range,” the company said in a statement.
Taylor Wimpey said pre-tax profit for the six months ended July 3 rose more than 16% to 334.5 million pounds ($406.89 million). It expects annual operating profit at the top of end of the company-compiled analysts’ expectation range of 873 million pounds to 924 million pounds.
Taylor Wimpey said it would make a cost-of living payment of up to 1,000 pounds for employees receiving an annual salary of up to 70,000 pounds as economies firefight a surge in inflation.
($1 = 0.8221 pounds)
(Reporting by Aby Jose Koilparambil in Bengaluru; editing by Uttaresh.V and Shailesh Kuber)
