Highlights
• An outstanding performance for the year
• Underlying profit before tax* increased by 34% to £637.8m (2014: £475.0m)
• Full year revenue up 13% to £2.9bn (2014: £2.6bn)
• Legal completions increased by 8% to 14,572 (2014: 13,509) and average selling price increased 4.5% to £199,127 (2014: £190,533)
• Operating margin* increased to 21.9% (2014: 18.4%); with second half improvement to 23.0%
• 24% increase in cash generation pre capital returns to £483m (2014: £388m)
• Return on average capital employed* increased by 30% to 32.1% (2014: 24.6%)
• A further 20,501 plots of land acquired in the year, with 6,739 plots successfully converted from the Group's strategic land portfolio
• Underlying basic earnings per share* increased by 39% to 173.0p (2014: 124.5p)
• Net cash of £570.4m at 31 December 2015 (2014: £378.4m)
• Forward sales ahead at £1.68bn (2015: £1.49bn), an increase of 12%
Long term strategy
• Completion of fourth year of our nine and a half year strategic plan, with performance significantly ahead of original expectations
• Strategy successfully delivering growth - new home legal completions ahead by over 55% since launch of plan in 2012
• Strategy successfully returning surplus capital - £733m, or £2.40 per share, of excess capital returned since launch of plan in 2012
• Strong performance of the business enabling further acceleration of the Capital Return Plan:
- Cash return of 110p per share to be made 1 April 2016, significantly ahead of the provisionally planned payment of 10p per share
- Total value of capital to be returned to shareholders increased by c. £860m, or £2.80 per share, over the original plan period to 2021
- Total value of the Capital Return Plan increased to £2.76bn, or £9.00 per share, a 45% increase from the original plan of £1.9bn, or £6.20 per share set in 2012
- Remaining total Capital Return Plan payments of £5.50 per share - currently intended to be paid in equal instalments of £1.10 per share over the remaining five years of the Plan period, commencing in 2017
