Taylor Wimpey to spend £150m buying back shares

Taylor Wimpey has said it will spend £150m of its £837m cash pile buying back shares. The housebuilder built the reserves up during the pandemic, from £546m in 2019. It expects to complete a first tranche of around £75m by 3 June. Publishing its results for the year to the end of December, Taylor Wimpey said revenue was almost back to its pre-pandemic level. Revenue for 2021 was £4.28bn, a 53% lift on 2020’s £2.8bn but below 2019’s £4.34bn. Profit before tax of £680m was behind 2019’s £836m, but a marked improvement on 2020’s £264m. However, the profit margin returned to its 2019 level, at 19.3%. The margin for 2019 was 19.6%, while in 2020 it sank to 10.6%. Total home completions rose from 9,609 in 2020 to 14,087 in 2021, while the average selling price increased from £288,000 to £300,000. The housebuilder, which welcomes Jennie Daly as its new chief executive next month, said it was in a good position, having ended the year with a total order book of just over 10,000 homes excluding joint ventures, valued at £2.55bn. To send feedback, e-mail piers.wehner@eg.co.uk or tweet @PiersWehner or @EGPropertyNews Photo: Didcot Valley Park © Taylor Wimpey