Taylor Wimpey’s revenue for the six months to 30th June 2021 was £2,196.3m, which is nearly 80% of what it generated in the whole of 2020.
It made an operating profit of £424m, compared to a loss of £16.2m in the same period of 2020, when it had to close its sites for most of the second quarter because of the first national lockdown. Profit before tax was £287.5m (2020 H1: £39.8m loss).
Provisions increased to £249.3m (31st December 2020: £130.5m) due to the £125.0m cladding fire safety provision recognised in the period.
Total UK home completions (excluding joint ventures) increased to 7,219 in the first half (H1 2020: 2,713).
Chief executive Pete Redfern said: "We have delivered a record first half performance and a strong operating profit margin performance of 19.3%, which reflects tight cost discipline as well as higher completions in the period.
“Our focus remains on driving further improvement in our operating profit margin and accelerated outlet-driven volume growth from 2023.”
He added: “We have a clear purpose to deliver high-quality homes and create thriving communities and a strategy to ensure the long term sustainability of the business. We now expect to deliver 2021 full year group operating profit of c.£820m, above the top end of consensus, with UK completions (excluding joint ventures) expected to be towards the upper end of our guidance range of 13,200 to 14,000."
Rising house prices is enabling companies like Taylor Wimpey to absorb the impact of rising materials costs. Pete Redfern said: “Whilst there is pressure on pricing and supply chains for certain materials such as timber and steel owing to strong global demand, healthy increases in house prices are fully offsetting build cost inflation.
“Our central procurement team and logistics business continues to work closely with our supply chain to understand and track the origins of our components and subcomponents and stocking levels within the supply chain. This helps provide visibility of our materials supply, identifying and pre-empting potential bottlenecks.”
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