Financial information

18 MARCH 2010

Preliminary Statement of Results for the year ended 31 December 2009

Resilient Result in an unprecedented property market

Savills plc, the international real estate advisor, is pleased to announce its results for the year ended 31 December 2009.

Highlights

  • Strong second half performance from Asia Pacific transactional business
  • Strong performance from UK Residential business
  • UK Commercial business strengthened in fourth quarter
  • Cost savings of £62m achieved in the year
  • Selective investment in new teams and individual recruitments

Key Financial Information

Underlying Results*

  • Revenue: £560.7m (2008: £568.5m) (1.4% down; 7.6% down in constant currency)
  • Underlying profit before tax: £25.2m (2008: £33.2m)*
  • Underlying basic earnings per share: 14.5p (2008: 18.1p)*
  • Year end net cash: £66.3m (2008: £45.7m)

Reported IFRS results

  • Revenue: £560.7m (2008: £568.5m)
  • Profit before tax: £13.5m (2008: loss £7.7m)
  • Basic earnings per share: 7.3p (2008: loss 9.3p)
  • Second interim dividend: 6.0p per share (2008: nil), making 9.0p for the year (2008: 9.0p)

* Underlying profit is calculated by adjusting reported pre-tax profit by exceptional items, profit on disposals, share-based payment adjustment and impairment and amortisation of goodwill and intangibles (excluding software).

Jeremy Helsby, Group Chief Executive of Savills plc, commented:
“I am pleased to report a resilient performance across the group with significant improvement in the second half of the year. In particular, UK Residential performed strongly as markets recovered and the performance of our Asia Pacific businesses, which now represent 38% of the group’s revenues, endorsed our strategic decision to expand in this region.

“Notwithstanding the improvement in the second half, market conditions remain unpredictable. We have reduced costs significantly across the Group whilst maintaining the operating capacity of our transaction teams around the world to take advantage of improvements in market conditions.

“Against this backdrop we maintain a cautious stance and anticipate that our overall performance in 2010 will be similar to that of 2009, although the relative contributions of our individual businesses may be somewhat different. We remain, however, well positioned with a strong balance sheet to continue our strategy of building the business and pursuing selected investment opportunities should they arise.”

For further information, contact:

Savills 020 7409 8844
Jeremy Helsby, Group Chief Executive
Simon Shaw, Group Chief Financial Officer

Tulchan Communications 020 7353 4200
John Sunnucks
Peter Hewer

There will be an analyst presentation today at 11am at UBS, 1 Finsbury Avenue, London EC2M 2PP

To listen to a recorded phonecast of the presentation of the 2009 full year results dial these numbers from 11.30 am (GMT):

+61 (0)2 8014 7928 - Australia
+33 (0)1 74 20 28 00 - France
+49 (0)69 2222 2236 - Germany
+852 3011 4669 - Hong Kong (China)
+353 (0)1 4860902 - Ireland
+39 02 3041 3127 - Italy
+81 (0)3 5767 9615 - Japan
+31 (0)20 708 5013 - Netherlands
+48 (0)22 212 6214 - Poland
+65 3103 1174 - Singapore
+34 91 788 9967 - Spain
+46 (0)8 5051 3897 - Sweden
+44 (0)20 7111 1244 - UK
+1 347 366 9565 - USA

Please enter the following confirmation access code when prompted: 8714174#

View the Preliminary Results 2009 in PDF format

View the Preliminary Results Presentation in PDF format.

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