text: Barratt Annual Results Are Strong | Today's Conveyancer
  Barratt Annual Results Are Strong
  Barratt's, the housing developer, have released their annual financial results, in the year ending 30 June 2020, demonstrating that they are in a strong position heading out of the coronavirus pandemic.
  The organisation has seen their share prices increase by more than 6%.
  "While Covid-19 has had significant impact on our results, our priority has been to keep our people safe, mitigate the effect of the pandemic on our business and be able to emerge from the crisis in a resilient position. Although uncertainties remain, all of our sites are operation, we are seeing a very strong consumer demand and our robust financial position means we enter the new financial year with cautious optimism. We are now renewing our focus on our medium term targets, on leading the industry in quality and service and on supporting jobs and economic growth by building the homes the country needs"
  The figures demonstrate that the house builder has a resilient balance sheet with net cash at 30 June 2020 of £308.2m (2019: £765.7m) and land creditors of £791.9m (2019: £960.7m) equivalent to 25.4% (2019: 31.3%) of the owned land bank, equating to modest total gearing (including land creditors) of 12.3% (2019: 4.9%).
  They also revealed they had profit before tax of £491.8m (2019: £909.8m), impacted by the unprecedented disruption to sales and build in our fourth quarter.
  These results are announced the day after it was revealed that mortgage approval levels had reached their highest levels in July, as they continue to recover following the coronavirus pandemic.
  Ross Counsell, chartered surveyor and Director at Good Move, on today's Bank of England money and credit release:
  "The number of mortgage approvals in July continued to increase compared to previous months, whilst approvals for re-mortgage didn't see much movement.
  "Household deposits, however only increased by £7.0 billion in July, a decrease from £11.7 billion in June.
  "Whilst today's statistics aren't particularly worrying, these are still uncertain times for buyers and it's likely that they're still going to experience challenges when applying for the mortgage they require. What's more, should we see further redundancies take place across the UK, this will undoubtedly affect sellers.
  "In the next few months, we expect to see the government put further strategies in place to help buyers and ensure they're properly supported in the years to come."