(Alliance News) - Berkeley Group Holdings PLC on Friday said trading between November and February was in line with levels noted in December as the UK housebuilding sector recovers from its September 'mini budget' shock.

The Surrey-based housebuilder said its performance of around 25% lower sales from November 1 to February 28, when compared to May 1 to September 30, was "resilient" given the market volatility since the end of September.

Berkeley added that this reflected the underlying demand for homes in London and the South East.

Berkeley reaffirmed a target of pretax profit of GBP600 million for financial 2023 ending April 30, with at least GBP1.05 billion in aggregate to follow over the next two years. Pretax profit in financial 2022 was GBP551.5 million, up 6.4% from GBP518.1 million the year prior.

Cash due on exchanged forward sales is anticipated to be above GBP2.0 billion at year-end, down slightly from GBP2.17 billion a year before.

Berkeley said it working with the UK government to be in a position to sign the fire safety remediation agreement, whose deadline is Monday.

The self-remediation contract requires developers to fix unsafe buildings from the past 30 years. The new requirement follows the Grenfell Tower fire in 2017, which was made deadly by flammable building cladding.

Meanwhile, Berkeley said it aims for the next GBP141.4 million shareholder return to be provided by the end of September via a combination of dividends and share buybacks.

Berkeley shares were 0.7% lower at 4,007.00 pence each on Friday morning in London.

By Tom Budszus, Alliance News reporter

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