HOUSEBUILDER CALA Group has hailed 2021 as a “very successful year”, saying it anticipates pre-tax profits of around £130 million, up 35 per cent on the pre-pandemic year of 2019.

It said a strong trading performance was expected to deliver annual revenue of £1.25 billion for the first time, as it issued preliminary results for the 12 months to December 31 ahead of audited accounts to be finalised in March.

CALA said it had recorded a private average sales price of £462,000 in 2021.

It said that home completions had totalled 2,904 – an increase of 19% on the 2019 figure of 2,449 units. The housebuilder added that the 2021 figure was up 59% on the 2020 total of 1,835 units.

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CALA noted it had entered its new financial year with its “strongest-ever forward private reservations – £488 million gross development value (GDV) from 994 units”.

Kevin Whitaker, chief executive of CALA Group, said: “2021 has been a very successful year for the business, during which we have strongly rebounded to significantly exceed pre-pandemic 2019 volumes, revenue and pre-tax profit. Several factors have enabled our excellent financial performance across the 12-month period. In particular, we have seen many people making positive new home choices to seek out larger living spaces and this has driven very strong demand for our homes in aspirational suburban locations.

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“While there have been significant supply-chain challenges across the industry, the market has been strong. This, combined with improvements to our operational efficiency and the hard work of our team, has enabled us to deliver an excellent performance across the year.”

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He added: “Looking ahead to 2022 we are positive about our prospects. We enter the year with record forward private reservations, equating to a GDV of £488m. This year we plan to increase our housing delivery further still – building more than 3,200 homes across our eight regional operations. We have a strong short-term land bank to underpin the delivery of our current business plan and continue to invest heavily in land as we look towards our medium-term ambition of reaching a revenue of £1.8bn by 2026.”