British housebuilder Barratt Developments said it would not pay a final dividend after making a 13 per cent fall in underlying annual profit, and warned that the market remained difficult.
"There is little prospect for any material improvement in trading conditions until mortgage finance and customer confidence return," chief executive Mark Clare said. "In the meantime, we have successfully refinanced our business," he said in a statement today.
Barratt made a pretax profit before exceptional items of £392.3 million (€489 million) in the year to end-June.
Its average selling price rose 6 per cent to £183,100 due to a change in mix to more premium locations, but fell by around 5 per cent on an underlying basis.
The group said forward sales at end-June were £698 million, compared with £1.4 billion in 2007. By the end of August forward sales had increased to £783 million.
