UK housebuilder Redrow PLC (LON:RDW) swung to a profit in the first half and said the second half has started encouragingly.
It made a pretax profit of £8.5 million inther period to end-December 2010, compared with an £8.7 million loss a year earlier. Revenue rose to £216.1 million from £187.2 million.
Chairman Steve Morgan said "Redrow continued to make good progress in the first half of the financial year, against the backdrop of a housing market overshadowed by economic uncertainties, tax rises and government cutbacks.
"In spite of the challenging conditions, Redrow's decision to return to our traditional values with the introduction of the New Heritage Collection proved to be a great success for the business.”
Current trading is in line with expectations.
During the first half, Redrow secured 1,452 new plots which has resulted in a current land bank of 13,140 plots, broadly similar in number terms to June 2010. Although the number of plots in the current land bank has remained stable, the quality of the land bank has increased significantly as new land has been purchased, in the main, for New Heritage, it added.