Revenue at the firm reached £946.5m last year, a growth of 17%, which Bovis said was driven by record legal completions and a ‘strong’ 7% increase in the average sales price from £216,600 to £231,600 in 2015.
David Ritchie, chief executive of Bovis Homes Group, said the developer anticipated ‘sustainable growth’ over the next few years with plans to build between 5,000 and 6,000 homes a year.
“We have invested well during 2015 in new consented land and achieved a strong level of conversion from our strategic land bank,” said Ritchie. “While it has been a time of operational challenge with fast-moving market conditions, we are delivering our strategic growth plan and have evolved our management and business structure at the start of 2016 to support further growth.
“Assuming market conditions remain stable we are confident in our ability to improve return on capital employed further in 2016,” he added.
Bovis said demand for new housing was supported by a buoyant mortgage market and low interest rates, but pointed out that the level of new-build homes being supplied continued to be below government targets. However, it said continued rising activity in the sector could constrain labour supply and push up the cost of building new homes as a result.
It said the extension of the Help to Buy equity loan scheme was welcome news to the building sector but noted that details of the government’s Starter Homes initiative were still unclear.
Bovis said it would continue a ‘disciplined’ land investment strategy, following on from its acquisition of 35 sites in 2015 and 42 sites in 2014, in line with its ambition to acquire around 40 new sites per year.
