HOUSEBUILDER Stewart Milne Group tumbled to a £26m pre-tax loss in its last financial year, as the oil downturn hit house sales in north-east Scotland and it booked a loss on selling non-core assets.
It made a £7.8m pre-tax profit in its prior year.
Stewart Milne Group said yesterday that its turnover had fallen to £209.3 million in the year to June 2016, from £241.4m in the prior 12 months. The housebuilder attributed the drop in turnover to a “reduction in the number of homes sold in north-east Scotland following the downturn in the oil and gas sector”. Bank debt rose from £201m to £227.7m in the 12 months to June last year.
Stuart MacGregor, finance director of Stewart Milne Group, said: “In common with all housebuilders who operate in north-east Scotland, we have faced a very difficult period in the local market, where the downturn in the oil and gas sector has had a major impact on consumer confidence. We have responded to this by ensuring that we focus on providing quality family homes for which demand remains solid.”
The company noted it had taken a strategic decision to accelerate the growth in its long-established homes businesses in central Scotland and north-west England through increased investment in new sites.
It noted that a disposal of non-core assets, including non-residential properties and its historic shared equity portfolio, had generated the cash to fund this increased investment. However, it noted it had made a loss on the sale of non-core assets.
In autumn 2016, the group secured a three-year, £185 million banking facility with Bank of Scotland.
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules hereLast Updated:
Report this comment Cancel