Abbey sees cooling of housing market

House builder Abbey posted a rise in first half pre-tax profits today and said there are signs the market ahead will not be as…

House builder Abbey posted a rise in first half pre-tax profits today and said there are signs the market ahead will not be as exuberant as in recent months.

The comments came as it posted a pre-tax profit for the six months to October 31st of €21.19 million against €14.56 million, on sales of €88.11 million against €64.55 million .

Its plant-hire operation, M&J Engineers, had sales of €10.4 million and operating profits of €1 million.

Earnings per share were 45.34 cents against 31.19, with an interim dividend of 7.5 cents against 6.5 cents.