Urban & Civic saw its EPRA net asset value (NAV) jump 9.6% in full year results after successfully progressing residential sites through the planning system.
EPRA NAV rose from £481.2m a year ago to £527.5m with the revaluation of its Waterbeach site, where the company gained outline consent for 6,500 homes earlier this year, contributing £24.6m to the uplift.
Work to prepare sites for development and infrastructure projects also contributed to the NAV increase, as did the sale of 665 plots.
The company declared a final dividend of 2.5p per share, 11.4% up year-on-year, bringing its dividend for the year to 3.9p. Earnings per share was
Urban & Civic, which has gained around 20% of all large site (3,000 plus units) planning consents in the UK, has witnessed five years of unbroken growth against generally flat land prices.
Nigel Hugill, chief executive, said: “The debate over large sites is over. Urban&Civic is now consistently outperforming static land markets as master developer of new prime environments in which housebuilders want to build and homeowners want to live.
“The keys are location and stakeholder alignment. Government policies are providing enough land supply for new market homes across most of the country but not South East England, where the company enjoys actual platform advantage. If we can only see a return to stable politics, the reasonable assumption is for the maturing profile of our projects and pipeline to enable further medium-term acceleration.”
UANC : Urban & Civic posts 9.6% leap in NAV