Housebuilder to sell land as profit crashes

Scottish housebuilder Springfield Properties will continue to offload land as it does battle with “challenging market conditions”. Chief executive Innes Smith said the company has agreed £18m of land sales and expects to seal more deals “in the near term”. “Trading for the first half of the year was in line with our expectations, and reflects the challenging market conditions experienced across the industry,” Smith said. “To mitigate the impacts of the downturn and ensure we are in a stronger position for when trading conditions recover, we took decisive actions to maximise cash generation and reduce our debt by year end. A key element of this was actively pursuing profitable land sales.” Over the six months to 30 November, three company posted a 25% fall in revenue to £121.6m. Pretax profit slumped by 80% to £1.2m. “Looking ahead, we are encouraged by the improvement in private housing reservations that we have experienced in recent weeks and the signs of increasing homebuyer confidence, as has been reported by other housebuilders,” Smith said.