(Reuters) – Berkeley Group Holdings kept its annual profit outlook for the 2023 fiscal year on Friday, but turned more cautious on new investments as the British high-end homebuilder reported a small fall in half-year profit.
Berkeley also reaffirmed shareholder returns plans running till September 2025, at a time when UK homebuilders are facing slowing sales and higher booking cancellations as interest rate hikes and an ill-timed mini-budget in September made mortgages less affordable.
The Cobham-headquartered company, which is targeting an annual profit of 600 million pounds this year, said since September-end, the value of underlying sales had been around 25% lower than the previous five months.
The FTSE 100 firm, which operates mainly in London and the South of England, said it now targets pre-tax earnings of at least 1.05 billion pounds ($1.29 billion) for 2024 and 2025 fiscal years, down from 1.25 billion pounds forecast earlier.
Its pre-tax profit fell 2% to 284.8 million pounds in the six months ended Oct. 31.
($1 = 0.8159 pounds)
(Reporting by Aby Jose Koilparambil in Bengaluru; Editing by Subhranshu Sahu)
